Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry for the Simultaneous Determination of Doxorubicin and its Metabolites Doxorubicinol, Doxorubicinone, Doxorubicinolone, and 7-Deoxydoxorubicinone in Mouse Plasma.

Doxorubicin, an anthracycline antitumor antibiotic, acts as a cancer treatment by interfering with the function of DNA. Herein, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was for the first time developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of doxorubicin and its major metabolites doxorubicinol, doxorubicinone, doxorubicinolone, and 7-deoxydoxorubicinone in mouse plasma. The liquid-liquid extraction of a 10 µL mouse plasma sample with chloroform:methanol (4:1, v/v) and use of the selected reaction monitoring mode led to less matrix effect and better sensitivity. The lower limits of quantification levels were 0.5 ng/mL for doxorubicin, 0.1 ng/mL for doxorubicinol, and 0.01 ng/mL for doxorubicinone, doxorubicinolone, and 7-deoxydoxorubicinone. The standard curves were linear over the range of 0.5-200 ng/mL for doxorubicin; 0.1-200 ng/mL for doxorubicinol; and 0.01-50 ng/mL for doxorubicinone, doxorubicinolone, and 7-deoxydoxorubicinone in mouse plasma. The intra and inter-day relative standard deviation and relative errors for doxorubicin and its four metabolites at four quality control concentrations were 0.9-13.6% and -13.0% to 14.9%, respectively. This method was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study of doxorubicin and its metabolites after intravenous administration of doxorubicin at a dose of 1.3 mg/kg to female BALB/c nude mice.

Feasibility of simple chitosan sheet as drug delivery carrier.

Chitosan, a biodegradable and biocompatible polysaccharide, is a potentially useful material in various fields. We developed a simple chitosan sheet and examined the possibility of using an adriamycin-containing chitosan sheet as a drug carrier for controlled release. To prepare a carrier consisting only of chitosan, a chitosan suspension was subjected to acid-alkaline treatment, mixed with adriamycin, frozen and freeze-dried. The adriamycin-containing chitosan sheet was inserted into the peritoneal cavity of mice in order to investigate its biodegradation. The appearance of decomposition of chitosan was observed using scanning electron microscopy, and adriamycin in urine and liver was detected for 1 and 2 weeks, respectively. Adriamycin metabolites were detected in plasma for 2 weeks. Furthermore, adriamycin remained in the chitosan sheet without being metabolized after 2 months. These results suggested that the chitosan sheet prepared in this study might improve therapeutic efficacy in topical lesions as a carrier of sustained-release drugs.

The role of mdr1a P-glycoprotein in the biliary and intestinal secretion of doxorubicin and vinblastine in mice.

Drug-transporting P-glycoproteins are abundantly present in the liver and the intestinal wall. We have now investigated their role in the biliary and intestinal secretion of the anticancer drugs doxorubicin (unlabeled: 5 mg/kg) and vinblastine ((3)H-labeled: 1 mg/kg) i.v. administered to wild-type and mdr1a P-glycoprotein knockout [mdr1a(-/-)] mice. At 90 min after drug administration, levels of unchanged drug and metabolites in plasma, intestinal contents, and bile were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography and radioactivity by liquid scintillation counting. The bile of both wild-type and mdr1a(-/-) mice contained only minor amounts of unchanged vinblastine, whereas the total biliary secretion of unknown (3)H-labeled breakdown products was about 25 to 30% of the dose. The direct secretion of unchanged vinblastine through the gut wall was 6.7 and 3.3% of the dose in wild-type and mdr1a(-/-) mice, respectively. The biliary secretion of unchanged doxorubicin decreased from 13.3% of the dose to only 2.4% in the absence of mdr1a P-glycoprotein. Approximately 10% of the dose was secreted as unchanged doxorubicin into the intestinal contents of both types of mice. Thus, the absence of mdr1a P-glycoprotein affects the fate of vinblastine chiefly by diminishing secretion into the lumen of the small intestine, whereas it affects the fate of doxorubicin chiefly by diminishing secretion of parent drug into bile.

Pharmacokinetics and metabolism of doxorubicin after short-term infusions in lymphoma patients.

PURPOSE/METHODS: Twenty-four patients (17 males and 7 females with a mean age of 54 years) with malignant lymphoma participated in a study of doxorubicin pharmacokinetics after 50 mg/m(2) as 10-min infusions. In addition to plasma samples, serial leukocyte samples and - in one subject - serial biopsy specimens from lymphoma infiltrates were obtained. The samples were analysed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. RESULTS: In contrast to several previous studies, the data suggested that 7-deoxydoxorubicinolone, and not doxorubicinone, is a metabolite of doxorubicin in humans. Doxorubicin, but no metabolites, was present in significant and fairly constant concentrations in circulating leukocytes. These levels may reflect the drug levels in lymphoma infiltrates. The data further suggest that metabolism to 7-deoxydoxorubicinone is subject to large interindividual variation, possibly due to a genetic polymorphism, and that significant levels of a metabolic product which may be a doxorubicin glucuronide can be recovered from plasma of patients treated with doxorubicin.

Determination of doxorubicin and metabolites in murine specimens by high-performance liquid chromatography.

A sensitive and selective reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the quantification of doxorubicin and its metabolites doxorubicinol, 7-deoxydoxorubicinone and 7-deoxydoxorubicinolone was developed and validated for a variety of murine specimens. Daunorubicin was used as internal standard. Sample pretreatment involved liquid-liquid extraction of 200 microl sample with 1 ml of chloroform-1-propanol (4:1, v/v). Chromatographic separation was achieved isocratically on a LiChrosorb RP-8 analytical column at ambient temperature. The mobile phase consisted of acidified water (pH 2.05)-acetonitrile-tetrahydrofuran (80:30:1, v/v/v). The column effluent was monitored fluorimetrically at an excitation wavelength of 460 nm and an emission wavelength of 550 nm. The lower limits of quantitation were in the range 1.8-2.4 nM. Spiked murine specimens and samples from treated mice were subjected to stability studies. The results demonstrated the importance of validation in all relevant specimens, since the accuracy and precision were highly matrix-dependent. Accuracies and precisions of measured drug concentrations in liver, spleen, muscle, gastrointestinal tissues, diluted bile, feces and urine were lower than in the other matrices. Doxorubicin was unstable in diluted bile, but not in the other specimens. The method is suitable for studying the pharmacokinetics of doxorubicin and its metabolites in mice.

Determination of plasma concentrations of epirubicin and its metabolites by high-performance liquid chromatography during a 96-h infusion in cancer chemotherapy.

In order to determine epirubicin and its metabolites at low concentrations (< 38 ng/ml) in small plasma samples, a fast reliable method based on a precipitation pre-treatment and sensitive reversed-phase isocratic HPLC has been developed and validated for epirubicin in the range 5-100 ng/ml. The R.S.D. was 5-9% over this concentration range. For human serum containing 25 ng/ml of epirubicin, the inter- and intra-day variation was < 10%. Recoveries of the metabolites epirubicinol, 7-deoxydoxorubicinone and 7-deoxydoxorubicinolone at 20 ng/ml ranged from 94-104%. The assay has been used to study human plasma samples taken during a 96-h infusion of epirubicin in a patient with multiple myeloma. The combined levels of the unseparated metabolites, epirubicin glucuronide and epirubicinol glucuronide, were semiquantitatively determined after treatment with beta-glucuronidase. The metabolites epirubicinol and 7-deoxydoxorubicinolone, but not 7-deoxydoxorubicinone, were also detected and measured.

A sensitive procedure for the quantitation of free and N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide polymer-bound doxorubicin (PK1) and some of its metabolites, 13-dihydrodoxorubicin, 13-dihydrodoxorubicinone and doxorubicinone, in human plasma and urine by reversed-phase HPLC with fluorimetric detection.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic assay has been developed and validated for the determination in plasma and urine of doxorubicin (DXR) and some of its metabolites released in vivo from an N-(2-hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide (HPMA) polymer containing DXR linked through its aminosugar moiety to the polymer via an oligopeptide spacer (PK1). The method also allows measurement of the DXR still bound to the polymer. Following addition of two internal standards, the free compounds were extracted twice with isopropanol-chloroform (25:75, v/v). The first extraction was performed at physiological pH and the second after buffering at pH 8.4, in order to extract the aglycones and the glycosides, respectively. Determination of total DXR (polymer-bound plus free DXR) was performed, after quantitative acid hydrolysis to release doxorubicinone from free or polymer-bound DXR, by extraction with the same solvent mixture at pH 7.4. In both cases the organic phase was evaporated to dryness; the compounds were then separated by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) under isocratic conditions and quantitated by fluorimetric detection. In the chromatograms all the analytes appeared to be separated at the baseline and no interference from blank human plasma and urine was observed. The suitability of the method for in vivo samples was checked by the analysis of plasma and urine samples obtained from a cancer patient who had received a single intravenous dose of the test compound.

Rapid quantitative determination of doxorubicin and its metabolites in biological samples.

A rapid sensitive and selective method is developed for the plasma analysis of doxorubicin and its metabolites, doxorubicinol and doxorubicinone with daunorubicin as the internal standard, by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection and a "zorbax ODS" column. An eluent containing tetrahydrofuran and trietylamine afforded improved efficiency and resolution and was used to resolve the four anthracycline derivatives in a sole isocratic run. An example of the plasma levels obtained in a cancerous patient after two different administrations is shown.

[Pharmacokinetic study of aclarubicin. The pharmacokinetics of the preparation and its biologically active metabolites in the blood of rats]. / Farmakokineticheskoe izuchenie aklarubitsina. Farmakokinetika preparata i ego biologicheski aktivnykh metabolitov v krovi krys.

Blood pharmacokinetics of the antitumor antibiotic aclarubicin and its metabolites was studied in rats with high performance liquid chromatography. The drug was administered intravenously in single doses of 5 and 10 mg/kg and orally in a single dose of 10 mg/kg. Aclarubicin pharmacokinetics was shown to be nonlinear. However, within every dose level it obeyed a two-compartment model. The nonlinearity could be due to saturation of aclarubicin binding to blood plasma proteins. The blood concentrations of metabolites MA144 N1 and MA144 T1 were close and after 12-18 hours exceeded those of unchanged aclarubicin. The half-lives of aclarubicin and its metabolites ranged from 16 to 21 hours. The MA144 T1 content was not significant. Following oral administration aclarubicin was rapidly absorbed and its bioavailability amounted to 35 per cent. Total bioavailability of aclarubicin, MA144 N1 and MA144 T1 was equal to 89 per cent. This enabled to consider the oral route of aclarubicin administration promising in tumor therapy.

Determination of adriamycin and its fluorescent metabolites in human plasma by HPLC.

We describe a method for measuring adriamycin and its metabolites, adriamycinol and adriamycinone in plasma, using reversed phase HPLC and fluorescence detection. The lower limit of detection is approximately 1 ng/mL for each compound. An extraction technique for serum is described which is capable of an almost equal recovery (greater than 93%) of adriamycin and metabolites without interference from endogenous components of plasma and from other common drugs. Within-day and day to day coefficients of variation are estimated.

Occurrence of circulating 7-deoxyaglycone metabolites of 4'-deoxydoxorubicin in man.

In five cancer patients we have determined the pharmacokinetics of 4'-deoxydoxorubicin (4'-DOX), its alcoholic metabolite 4'-deoxydoxorubicinol and the occurrence of circulating 7-deoxyaglycone metabolites. The 7-deoxyaglycone of the alcohol metabolite, the major aglycone of Adriamycin (ADR) present in man, was not detected in any serum sample. The 7-deoxyaglycone of the parent drug, which appears in concentrations in excess of 30 ng/ml after ADR administration, was detected in only 2/5 patients in trace amounts. These preliminary data indicate a difference in biotransformation between ADR and 4'-DOX despite their close structural similarities.

Plasma levels of daunorubicin metabolites and the outcome of ANLL therapy.

Levels of plasma daunorubicin, daunorubicinol and aglycone metabolites were measured in 47 patients 3 h after daunorubicin was administered daily for three days as part of a cytosine arabinoside/daunorubicin remission induction regimen. High-pressure liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection was used for separation and quantitation of the drug and its metabolites. A wide range of plasma levels were observed regardless of the outcome of therapy. Patients who had high levels of the drug, or daunorubicinol on day 1 of therapy tended to have high levels on days 2 and 3 of the regimen. Three hours after the third daily dose of daunorubicin was administered, patients who would not enter remission had significantly higher levels of aglycone metabolites in plasma than did patients who entered remission. These data indicate that resistance to chemotherapeutic effects of daunorubicin may be connected with metabolism of the drug, especially with enhanced metabolism to aglycones.

Determination of anthracycline purity in patient samples and identification of in vitro chemical reduction products by application of a multi-diode array high-speed spectrophotometric detector.

We describe the application of a high-speed spectrophotometric detector and high-performance liquid chromatography to the determination of anthracycline purity in extracted patient specimens and to the identification of chemical reduction products. Blood contained pure anthracyclines whilst in urine, tissue and tumour there was evidence of co-eluting endogenous peaks and complexation. Aerobic reduction yielded two main products: a C13 alcohol and a fully reduced, non-fluorescent, yellow hydroquinone. Anaerobic reduction in the presence of DNA yielded a 7-deoxyaglycone metabolite end product instead of the fully reduced hydroquinone. Eight other separate chromatographic species were identified, all of which showed unique absorbance characteristics, having a visible lambda max at 530 nm and being coloured purple/blue.

Quantitation by flow cytometry of anthracycline drug uptake by peripheral blood and bone marrow cells in human leukemias.

The inherent fluorescence of the anthracycline drugs can be combined with flow cytometry to obtain a convenient and rapid method for the quantitation of anthracycline drug uptake by human leukemic cells. A good correlation exists between the average cellular fluorescence intensity and the amount of drug associated with the cell as measured by extraction. Cellular incorporation of adriamycin and daunomycin was determined in peripheral blood and bone marrow cells of human leukemic patients after standardized in vitro exposures. Differences in uptake were found between the different cell types, with cells of lymphatic origin incorporating less of the drugs than nonlymphatic cells. Preliminary observations made in two patients with nonlymphatic leukemia showed a correlation between the in vitro uptake of adriamycin and the clinical response.

Comparative murine metabolism and disposition of class II anthracycline antibiotics.

The metabolism and tissue distribution of aclacinomycin A (ACL), marcellomycin (MCM), and musettamycin (MST), three new anthracycline antibiotics, were compared after IV administration to mice. In plasma, total MCM- and ACL-derived fluorescence declined according to first-order kinetics, whereas an initial decline followed by a rebound was observed for MST. In plasma, MCM remained the predominant compound. ACL was eliminated more quickly, and was replaced by two metabolites, the reduced glycoside M1, and an aglycone. In the case of MST, two unidentified metabolites were observed in concentrations equivalent to that of the parent drug. The three drugs were distributed widely to organs, but only ACL achieved measurable concentrations in the brain. Initially, high concentrations of all three drugs were present in the lungs, but these decreased quickly to values similar to those present in the liver and kidneys. Intermediate concentrations of the three drugs were measured in heart and skeletal muscle. Splenic concentrations of all three drugs rose progressively, reaching a maximum at 8 h after injection in the case of ACL and MST, and at 24 h after injection in the case of MCM. Concentrations of the metabolites of MCM and MST were low in all organs except liver and kidney, where the aglycones 7-deoxypyrromycinone and bisanhydropyrromycinone were seen. The metabolism of ACL was extensive. Aglycones were dominant in the liver and kidneys, whereas reduced glycosides predominated in the spleen. These observations indicate that the murine pharmacology of these three structurally similar drugs differs markedly.

Sensitive enzyme immunoassay for the quantification of aclacinomycin A using beta-D-galactosidase as a label.

A sensitive enzyme immunoassay method (EIA) for an anticancer drug, aclacinomycin A (ACM), has been developed. With a double-antibody technique, ACM at a concentration as low as 100 pg/tube can be detected. An antibody to ACM was obtained by immunizing rabbits with an antigen prepared by coupling ACM with mercaptosuccinylated bovine serum albumin via N-maleoyl aminobutyric acid (MABA) as a coupling agent. Enzyme labeling of ACM was performed with beta-D-galactosidase (beta-Gal; EC 3.2.1.23) via m-maleoyl benzoic acid (MBA). The standard curve of the assay was linear on a logit-log plot over a concentration range of 30 pg to 10 ng. The antibody detected ACM and its metabolites, MA144 M1 (M1), MA144 N1 (N1), MA144 S1 (S1), and aklavin (T1) equally well, but was only minimally reactive with aklavinone (D1) and 7-deoxyaklavinone (C1), thus suggesting that this EIA can detect the total amounts of ACM and its biologically active glycosides among metabolites of ACM. This EIA is practically free from interference by any other anticancer drugs. Using this assay, serum levels of ACM equivalents can be determined accurately after administration of the drug to rats at a single dose of 10 mg/kg. Since ACM is now undergoing clinical trial, the EIA of the drug will be a valuable tool in clinical pharmacological studies.

Determination of adriamycin, adriamycinol and their 7-deoxyaglycones in human serum by high-performance liquid chromatography.

A reversed-phase isocratic high-performance liquid chromatographic assay is described for the measurement of adriamycin, adriamycinol and their 7-deoxyaglycones in human serum. The lower limit of detection in serum is 3 ng/ml for adriamycin and 1 ng/ml for adriamycinol and the 7-deoxyaglycones with coefficients of variation for k' of less than 5% throughout the day. An extraction technique for serum is described which is capable of an almost equal recovery (greater than 77%) of adriamycin, metabolites and daunorubicin (the internal standard) without interference from endogenous components of serum. Serum concentrations of metabolites 15 min after intravenous bolus administration of 40 mg/m2 adriamycin in two different patients were 26.5 and 16.6 ng/ml for adriamycinol; 109.8 and 5.8 ng/ml for the adriamycinol 7-deoxyaglycone and 21.4 and 17.1 ng/ml for the adriamycin 7-deoxyaglycone. A total of six metabolites of adriamycin were detected in the two patients using this methodology.