Design and tests of prospective property predictions for novel antimalarial 2-aminopropylaminoquinolones.

There is a pressing need to improve the efficiency of drug development, and nowhere is that need more clear than in the case of neglected diseases like malaria. The peculiarities of pyrimidine metabolism in Plasmodium species make inhibition of dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) an attractive target for antimalarial drug design. By applying a pair of complementary quantitative structure-activity relationships derived for inhibition of a truncated, soluble form of the enzyme from Plasmodium falciparum (s-PfDHODH) to data from a large-scale phenotypic screen against cultured parasites, we were able to identify a class of antimalarial leads that inhibit the enzyme and abolish parasite growth in blood culture. Novel analogs extending that class were designed and synthesized with a goal of improving potency as well as the general pharmacokinetic and toxicological profiles. Their synthesis also represented an opportunity to prospectively validate our in silico property predictions. The seven analogs synthesized exhibited physicochemical properties in good agreement with prediction, and five of them were more active against P. falciparum growing in blood culture than any of the compounds in the published lead series. The particular analogs prepared did not inhibit s-PfDHODH in vitro, but advanced biological assays indicated that other examples from the class did inhibit intact PfDHODH bound to the mitochondrial membrane. The new analogs, however, killed the parasites by acting through some other, unidentified mechanism 24-48 h before PfDHODH inhibition would be expected to do so.

If we designed airplanes like we design drugs....

In the early days, airplanes were put together with parts designed for other purposes (bicycles, farm equipment, textiles, automotive equipment, etc.). They were then flown by their brave designers to see if the design would work--often with disastrous results. Today, airplanes, helicopters, missiles, and rockets are designed in computers in a process that involves iterating through enormous numbers of designs before anything is made. Until very recently, novel drug-like molecules were nearly always made first like early airplanes, then tested to see if they were any good (although usually not on the brave scientists who created them!). The resulting extremely high failure rate is legendary. This article describes some of the evolution of computer-based design in the aerospace industry and compares it with the progress made to date in computer-aided drug design. Software development for pharmaceutical research has been largely entrepreneurial, with only relatively limited support from government and industry end-user organizations. The pharmaceutical industry is still about 30 years behind aerospace and other industries in fully recognizing the value of simulation and modeling and funding the development of the tools needed to catch up.

Modeling of absorption.

Absorption takes place when a compound enters an organism, which occurs as soon as the molecules enter the first cellular bilayer(s) in the tissue(s) to which is it exposed. At that point, the compound is no longer part of the environment (which includes the alimentary canal for oral exposure), but has become part of the organism. If absorption is prevented or limited, then toxicological effects are also prevented or limited. Thus, modeling absorption is the first step in simulating/predicting potential toxicological effects. Simulation software used to model absorption of compounds of various types has advanced considerably over the past 15 years. There can be strong interactions between absorption and pharmacokinetics (PK), requiring state-of-the-art simulation computer programs that combine absorption with either compartmental pharmacokinetics (PK) or physiologically based pharmacokinetics (PBPK). Pharmacodynamic (PD) models for therapeutic and adverse effects are also often linked to the absorption and PK simulations, providing PK/PD or PBPK/PD capabilities in a single package. These programs simulate the interactions among a variety of factors including the physicochemical properties of the molecule of interest, the physiologies of the organisms, and in some cases, environmental factors, to produce estimates of the time course of absorption and disposition of both toxic and nontoxic substances, as well as their pharmacodynamic effects.

Prediction of modified release pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics from in vitro, immediate release, and intravenous data.

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the value of mechanistic simulations in gaining insight into the behaviors of modified release (MR) formulations in vivo and to use the properly calibrated models for prediction of pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD). GastroPlus (Simulations Plus, Inc.) was used to fit mechanistic models for adinazolam and metoprolol that describe the absorption, PK, and PD after intravenous (i.v.) and immediate release (IR) oral (p.o.) administration. The fitted model for adinazolam was then used to predict the PD profile for a MR formulation and to design a new formulation with desired onset and duration of action. The fitted metoprolol model was used to gain insight and to explain the in vivo behaviors of MR formulations. For each drug, a single absorption/PK model was fitted that provided simulated plasma concentration-time profiles closely matching observed in vivo profiles across several different i.v. and p.o doses. Sedation score profiles of adinazolam were fitted with an indirect PD model. For metoprolol, the fitted absorption/PK model for IR p.o. doses was used to select in vitro dissolution conditions that best matched the in vivo release of MR doses. This model also explained differences in exposure after administration of MR formulations with different release rates. Mechanistic absorption/PK models allow for detailed descriptions of all processes affecting the two drugs' bioavailability, including release/dissolution, absorption, and intestinal and hepatic first pass extraction. The insights gained can be used to design formulations that more effectively overcome identified problems.

Simulations of the nonlinear dose dependence for substrates of influx and efflux transporters in the human intestine.

The purpose of this study was to develop simulation and modeling methods for the evaluation of pharmacokinetics when intestinal influx and efflux transporters are involved in gastrointestinal absorption. The advanced compartmental absorption and transit (ACAT) model as part of the computer program GastroPlus was used to simulate the absorption and pharmacokinetics of valacyclovir, gabapentin, and talinolol. Each of these drugs is a substrate for an influx or efflux transporter and all show nonlinear dose dependence within the normal therapeutic range. These simulations incorporated the experimentally derived gastrointestinal distributions of transporter expression levels for oligopeptide transporters PepT1 and HPT1 (valacyclovir); System L-amino acid transporter LAT2 and organic cation transporter OCTN1 (gabapentin); and organic anion transporter (OATP1A2) and P-glycoprotein (talinolol). By assuming a uniform distribution of oligopeptide transporter and by application of the in vitro K(m) value for valacyclovir, the simulations accurately reproduced the experimental nonlinear dose dependence. For gabapentin, LAT2 distribution produced simulation results that were much more accurate than OCTN1 distributions. For talinolol, an influx transporter distribution for OATP1A2 and the efflux transporter P-glycoprotein distributed with increasing expression in the distal small intestine produced the best results. The physiological characteristics of the small and large intestines used in the ACAT model were able to accurately account for the positional and temporal changes in concentration and carrier-mediated transport of the three drugs included in this study. The ACAT model reproduced the nonlinear dose dependence for each of these drugs.