Prediction Of Blood-brain Barrier Permeability Research Articles

Predicting Blood-Brain Barrier Permeability of Drugs: Evaluation of Different In Vitro Assays

The ability of a drug to penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is essential for its use in the pharmaceutical treatment of CNS disorders. Five different in vitro methods to predict BBB permeability of drugs were compared and evaluated in the present study. All assays were performed with a consistent set of seven compounds and in the same physiological buffer to provide a basis for direct comparison of the results. Octanol-buffer and liposome-buffer partition coefficients were most conveniently obtained but failed to predict BBB permeability for certain drugs. The incorporation of drugs into lipid monolayers at the air-buffer interface was found to be a poor predictor of BBB permeability and was furthermore not considered suitable for screening due to the demanding experimental requirements. Permeability studies using Caco-2 cell monolayers provided a good correlation to an in vitro model of the BBB, which was based on primary cultured porcine brain capillary endothelial cells (PBCEC). However, differences in drug permeability between the intestine and brain derived cells were detected, limiting the advantages of the easy handling of the Caco-2 cell line compared to the more time-consuming primary culture of the BCEC.

薬物動態研究・トランスポーター研究とドラッグデザイン

Recently, attempts have been made to synthesize rapidly very large numbers of compounds and identify promising drug candidates in terms of both their pharmacological activity and pharmacokinetic features during the early stages of screening (high throughput screening). In drug development, therefore, the importance of the extrapolation and prediction of pharmacokinetics in humans has increased and physiologically-based pharmacokinetics has played an important role in this.It has become possible to predict in vivo pharmacokinetics in humans if accurate data are available on in vitro drug metabolism, plasma membrane transport, and protein binding and if these data can be combined with physiological parameters such as hepatic blood flow etc. Recent findings are summarized for the quantitative prediction of the hepatic metabolic clearance from in vitro studies using human liver microsomes or P450 isozyme recombinant systems. Furthermore, a method is proposed to predict pharmacokinetic alterations caused by drug-drug interactions based on in vitro metabolic inhibition studies using human liver microsomes or human enzyme expression systems.Biliary or urinary excretion of drugs has been shown to be mediated by various transporters. Some transporters have been shown to be involved also in the efflux of various compounds through the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Examples of the recent studies showing the relevance of transporters in pharmacokinetics are given and the prediction of BBB permeability is also discussed. In future, these transport characteristics of the drug and the possibility of drug-drug interactions involving transport will also need to be taken into consideration for more strategic and efficient drug development.