Determination of Solubility Parameters of Ibuprofen and Ibuprofen Lysinate.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in formulating solid dispersions, which purposes mainly include solubility enhancement, sustained drug release and taste masking. The most notable problem by these dispersions is drug-carrier (in)solubility. Here we focus on solubility parameters as a tool for predicting the solubility of a drug in certain carriers. Solubility parameters were determined in two different ways: solely by using calculation methods, and by experimental approaches. Six different calculation methods were applied in order to calculate the solubility parameters of the drug ibuprofen and several excipients. However, we were not able to do so in the case of ibuprofen lysinate, as calculation models for salts are still not defined. Therefore, the extended Hansen's approach and inverse gas chromatography (IGC) were used for evaluating of solubility parameters for ibuprofen lysinate. The obtained values of the total solubility parameter did not differ much between the two methods: by the extended Hansen's approach it was δt = 31.15 MPa(0.5) and with IGC it was δt = 35.17 MPa(0.5). However, the values of partial solubility parameters, i.e., δd, δp and δh, did differ from each other, what might be due to the complex behaviour of a salt in the presence of various solvents.

Role of the charge pair aspartic acid-237-lysine-358 in the lactose permease of Escherichia coli.

Using a lactose permease mutant devoid of Cys residues (C-less permease), Asp237 and Lys358 were replaced with Cys or other amino acids to pursue the proposal that the two residues form a charge pair [King, S. C., Hansen, C. L., & Wilson, T.H. (1991) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1062, 177-186]. Individual replacement of Asp237 with Cys, Ala, or Lys or replacement of Lys358 with Cys, Ala, or Asp virtually abolishes active lactose transport. However, simultaneous replacement of both residues with Cys and/or Ala yields permease with high activity. Therefore, neutral amino acid substitutions at either position are detrimental only because they leave the opposing charge unpaired. Strikingly, moreover, when Asp237 is interchanged with Lys358, high activity is observed. The results indicate strongly that Asp237 and Lys358 interact to form a salt bridge and that neither residue nor the salt bridge per se is important for activity. Immunoblots reveal low membrane levels of the active mutants lacking the putative salt bridge, suggesting a role for the salt bridge in either permease folding or stability and raising the possibility that the salt bridge may exist in a folding intermediate but not in the mature protein. Remarkably, however, a mutant with Cys in place of Asp237 is restored to full activity by carboxymethylation which recreates a negative charge at position 237. Pulse-chase analysis and heat-inactivation studies indicate that the stability of the double mutant with Cys at positions 237 and 358 is comparable to C-less. Therefore, the interaction between Asp237 and Lys358 is likely to be important for permease folding and is maintained in the mature protein.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)