Measurement of paclitaxel in biological matrices: high-throughput liquid chromatographic-tandem mass spectrometric quantification of paclitaxel and metabolites in human and dog plasma.

A GLP-validated, sensitive and specific LC-MS-MS method for the quantification of paclitaxel and its 6-alpha- and 3'-p-hydroxy metabolites is presented. A 0.400 ml plasma aliquot is spiked with a (13)C(6)-labeled paclitaxel internal standard and extracted with 1 ml methyl-tert.-butyl ether. The ether is evaporated and the residue is reconstituted in 130 microl of 30% aqueous acetonitrile (ACN) containing 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid. Isocratic HPLC analysis is performed by injecting 50 microl of the reconstituted material onto a 50x2.1 mm C(18) column with an ACN-water-acetic acid (50:50:0.1) mobile phase at 200 microl/min flow. Detection is by positive ion electrospray followed by multiple reaction monitoring of the following transitions: paclitaxel (854>509 u), 6-alpha-hydroxy paclitaxel (870>525 u), 3'-p-hydroxy paclitaxel (870>509 u) and internal standard (860>509 u). Quantification is by peak area ratio against the 13C(6) internal standard. The method range is 0.117-117 nM (0.1-100 ng/ml) for paclitaxel and both metabolites using a 0.400 ml human or dog plasma sample. Analysis time per sample is less than 5 min.

A systematic SAR study of C10 modified paclitaxel analogues using a combinatorial approach.

A library with 63 paclitaxel analogues modified at the C10 position of paclitaxel has been prepared using parallel solution phase synthesis. Most of the C10 analogues were slightly less active than paclitaxel in the tubulin assembly assay and had reduced potency in the B16 melanoma and MCF-7 cell line cytotoxicity assays. These modifications at C10, however, did not lead to the total loss of activity, indicating that the C10 moiety of paclitaxel may not be directly involved in the drug-microtubule interactions, but could influence its binding affinity to P-glycoprotein. Approximately 50% of the analogues demonstrated better activity against the drug resistant cell line MCF7-ADR. However, the increase in activity was 10-fold at most. This result demonstrates that the cytotoxicity against this drug resistant cancer cell line is sensitive to structural changes at the C10 position of paclitaxel. It was also found that the presence of a nitrogen atom in the C10 substituent might play a role in the interaction of analogues with microtubules.