Exam 1: Pharmacodynamics Flashcards
T/F Drugs being a solid/liquid/gas does NOT affect the route of administration
False; all 3 affect the route of administration
How is drug size expressed in units?
Daltons
What size are most drugs?
100-1000 MW
Can a drug diffuse if it is >1000 MW?
No; the drug is too big and will not diffuse as readily
What mechanism can describe how receptors and drugs bind together?
Lock and key mechanism; Drugs have a specific structure and fit/bind into a specific receptor
What 4 things affect receptor interactions?
- Appropriate size
- Electrical charge
- Shape
- Atomic composition
What are the 3 main types of chemical bonds seen with receptors?
- Covalent
- Electrostatic (charged molecules, hydrogen bonds, Van der Waals forces)
- Hydrophobic (lipid-soluble drugs)
Which bond type is the strongest? Which is the weakest?
Covalent = Strongest
Hydrophobic = Weakest
How do bond strength and specificity relate to one another?
They are inversely related to one another; As bond strength increases, specificity decreases and as bond strength decreases, specificity increases
What is specificity?
How specifically a drug has to fit into a receptor site to elicit an effect
Are agonists endogenous, exogenous, or both?
Both
What happens when an agonist binds to a receptor?
It elicits a downstream response
What are isomers?
Compounds with the same chemical equation but different shapes
Why are isomers important in pharmacology?
Drugs are optical isomers; each isomer has different effects on the body and in pharmacology, we take an average of the two isomers and give the racemic mixture to the patient
What drug is an example of a racemic mixture?
Esketamine = purified form of Ketamine
What 3 things affect the duration of drug action?
- How long the drug binds and releases from the receptor
- How long the downstream effect is and what type of bonds are present (if it is a covalent bond the receptor will need to be degraded)
- Desensitization (cells being shut down via signalling processes)
What are the 2 properties of “good” receptors?
- Selective - binds to one receptor/type of receptor
- Alteration - the ligand binds to the receptor and has some sort of conformational change to cause a downstream effect
What are “bad” receptors?
Non-regulatory molecules that bind drugs with no detectable change
What are 2 properties of “bad” receptors?
- “Inert binding sites” - a binding site where the drug binds but nothing changes at all
- Drug carriers - they can carry drugs but they won’t have an effect on the body
What is the most important drug carrier?
Albumin
When a plasma protein is bound to a drug, can it cross barriers? Why or why not?
No; albumin is too large to cross barriers
T/F When plasma protein is unbound, it can cross barriers.
True