Altered oral bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of P-glycoprotein substrates by coadministration of biochanin A.

Effects of coadministration of dietary supplement biochanin A (BA) on the pharmacokinetics of three P-glycoprotein substrates, paclitaxel, digoxin, and fexofenadine, were investigated in rats. With BA coadministration, the oral bioavailability and peak plasma concentration were markedly increased by 3.77- and 2.04-fold for paclitaxel, 1.75- and 1.71-fold for digoxin, but were reduced by 0.694- and 0.429-fold for fexofenadine, respectively. Paclitaxel is a Pgp and CYP3A substrate, the drastic increase in systemic exposure may be attributed to the synergistic inhibition of Pgp and CYP3A by BA in the intestine. Digoxin is a substrate for Pgp, CYP3A, and Oatp2. BA may suboptimally inhibit Pgp and CYP3A, resulting in a moderate increase in oral bioavailability of digoxin. Fexofenadine is a substrate for Pgp, Oatp1, Oatp2, and Oatp3. BA appears to preferentially inhibit Oatp3 over Pgp in the intestine, leading to the decreased oral absorption of fexofenadine. No significant changes in mean residence time and terminal half-life were observed for all drugs, suggesting a negligible effect of BA on their hepatic/renal elimination. These findings demonstrate the importance of interplay among uptake/efflux transporters and metabolizing enzymes. The enhanced oral absorption by BA coadministration may be exploited to improve oral bioavailability of Pgp and CYP3A substrate compounds.

Improved pharmacokinetic and bioavailability support of drug discovery using serial blood sampling in mice.

Pharmacokinetic studies in mice traditionally require one animal per time point, resulting in dosing and euthanizing a large number of animals and producing suboptimal quality of pharmacokinetic data due to inter-animal variability and dosing error. These studies are time-consuming and labor-intensive. To improve the throughput and quality of pharmacokinetic evaluation in mice, we have developed a serial blood sampling methodology using the lateral saphenous vein puncture technique. Two marketed drugs, indinavir and rosuvastatin, were selected for this validation study because of their distinctly different physicochemical and pharmacokinetic properties. Each compound was dosed orally and intravenously in mice using both discrete and serial blood sampling methods. The pharmacokinetic results from serial bleeding are in excellent agreement with those from discrete sampling for both compounds. Compared to the discrete sampling, the serial sampling procedure is a more humane method, allowing for rapid and repeated sampling from the same site without the need for anesthesia. The application of this new method has led to a remarkable reduction in animal and compound usage, a significant increase in throughput and speed, and a drastic improvement in pharmacokinetic data quality. This approach is especially useful for the first-tier in vivo pharmacokinetic screening of discovery compounds.

A 96-well screen filter plate for high-throughput biological sample preparation and LC-MS/MS analysis.

A novel 96-well screen filter plate (patent pending) has been invented to eliminate a time-consuming and labor-intensive step in preparation of in vivo study samples--to remove blood or plasma clots. These clots plug the pipet tips during a manual or automated sample-transfer step causing inaccurate pipetting or total pipetting failure. Traditionally, these blood and plasma clots are removed by picking them out manually one by one from each sample tube before any sample transfer can be made. This has significantly slowed the sample preparation process and has become a bottleneck for automated high-throughput sample preparation using robotic liquid handlers. Our novel screen filter plate was developed to solve this problem. The 96-well screen filter plate consists of 96 stainless steel wire-mesh screen tubes connected to the 96 openings of a top plate so that the screen filter plate can be readily inserted into a 96-well sample storage plate. Upon insertion, the blood and plasma clots are excluded from entering the screen tube while clear sample solutions flow freely into it. In this way, sample transfer can be easily completed by either manual or automated pipetting methods. In this report, three structurally diverse compounds were selected to evaluate and validate the use of the screen filter plate. The plasma samples of these compounds were transferred and processed in the presence and absence of the screen filter plate and then analyzed by LC-MS/MS methods. Our results showed a good agreement between the samples prepared with and without the screen filter plate, demonstrating the utility and efficiency of this novel device for preparation of blood and plasma samples. The device is simple, easy to use, and reusable. It can be employed for sample preparation of other biological fluids that contain floating particulates or aggregates.

High-throughput cytochrome p450 inhibition assays by ultrafast gradient liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry using monolithic columns.

A generic method employing ultrafast liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) was developed and employed for routine screening of drug candidates for inhibition of five major human cytochrome p450 (CYP) isozymes, CYP3A4, CYP2D6, CYP2C9, CYP2C19, and CYP1A2. The method utilized a monolithic silica rod column to allow fast flow rates to significantly reduce chromatographic run time. The major metabolites of six CYP-specific probe substrates for the five p450 isoforms were monitored and quantified to determine IC(50) values of five drug compounds against each p450 isozyme. Human liver microsomal incubation samples at each test compound concentration were combined and analyzed simultaneously by the LC/MS/MS method. Each pooled sample containing six substrates and an internal standard was separated and detected in only 24 seconds. The combination of ultrafast chromatography and sample pooling techniques has significantly increased sample throughput and shortened assay turnaround time, allowing a large number of compounds to be screened rapidly for potential p450 inhibitory activity, to aid in compound selection and optimization in drug discovery.