Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics Flashcards
What is drug metabolism?
Biochemical modification of pharmaceutical sibstances by living organisms usually through specialised enzymatic activity
What does metabolism limit?
The life of a substance in the body by rendering lipid soluble and non-polar compounds to water soluble and polar compounds than can be excreted
What substances are excreted?
Water soluble
What substances are reabsorbed back into the blood from renal sites?
Lipid soluble
What are some sites of drug metabolism?
Liver
Lining of gut
Kidneys
Lungs
What is the purpose of drug metabolism?
Increase water solubility and aid excretion
Deactivate compounds
What are prodrugs?
Drugs that may be activated following metabolism
What are examples of prodrugs?
Codeine
Enalpril
Simvastatin
Sacbitril
What are the effects of metabolism?
Loss of pharmacological activity
Decrease in activity, with metabolites that show some activity
Increase in activity, more active metabolites (activation of prodrug)
Production of toxic metabolites
What can different kinds of toxic metabolites do?
Direct toxicity
Carcinogenesis (formation of a cancer)
Teratogenesis (congenital malformations produced in an embryo)
What is carcinogenesis?
Formation of a cancer
What is teratogenesis?
Congenital malformations produced in an embryo
What happens to a prodrug during metabolism?
Inactive chemical compound is coverted into its active metabolite
What controls the metabolism of drugs?
Enzymes
What can you say about the specificity of enzymes that metabolise drugs?
They have a wide range of specificity so individual drugs are often metabolised by more than one
How can different enzymes be expressed?
Constitutively (constant amounts)
In the presence of particular substance
What are the 2 phases of metabolism?
Phase 1 (activation/inactivation)
Phase 2 (conjugation products)
What are different phase 1 reactions?
Oxidation
Reduction
Hydrolysis
What happens during phase 1?
Polar groups are introduced to the molecule
What does increasing the polarity of compounds during phase 1 do?
Provides an active site for phase 2 metabolism
What is the most important superfamily of metabolising enzymes?
Cytochrome P-450
What does drug specificity of an enzyme depend on?
Which isoform of cytochrome P-450 is being used
What are the 3 families of the cytochrome P-450 super family used in oxidative drug metabolism?
CYP1
CYP2
CYP3
What is CYP1A2 important in the metabolism of?
Theophylline
What is CYP1A2 induced by?
Smoking