Pharmokinetics Flashcards
What is pharmacology?
Branch of medicine and biolgy concerned with the study of drug action.Interactions that occur between a living organisms that affect normal/abnormal biochemical function
What is a drug?
Any man-made, natural or endogenous molecule that exerts a biochemical/ physiological effect on a cell/tissue/organ/organism
What does endogenous mean?
(Made) within the body
What do drugs usually act on?
Target proteins
What is a receptor?
Protein molecules whose function is to recognise and respond to endogenous chemical signals
What is the difference between a receptor and a drug target
Receptor - recognise and respond to chemical signals
Drug target -other macromolecules that drugs interact with to produce their effects
What is the importance of pinpointing the receptor locations?
Allows drugs to target specific tissues
Allows predictions of side effects (if the receptors are found in other parts of the body too)
How much does the chemical nature of the drug have to match that of the target molecule?
Almost perfectly
Drug-receptor interactions are dynamic. What does this mean?
Drugs bond to the receptor molecules (non-covalently) to form the active form of the complex. After this itcan dissociate for the cycle to repeat itself.
What is the definition of specificity?
How many receptors can the drug bind to and how many drugs can the receptor molecules bind? The greater the number, the lower the specificity.
What is the definition of affinity?
How strong is the (non-covalent) bonding between the drug and the receptor molecule?
Measured by the dissociation constant of the DR complex.
What is the definition of the dissociation constant?
The concentration at which half the drug is bound to the receptor at equilibrium.
Like rate constant/ half-life
what is the name of the law thatstates that the rate of a chemical reaction is proportional to the product of themassesof the reactants?
Law of mass action
If all the receptors for the drug are bound, will increasng dosage increate the rate of binding?
No - No additional positive effects
If the drug is able to bind to other receptor molecules, what effect would this have on the free solution?
Concentration of drug in free solution decreases
What is an agonist?
Drug that produces a positive effect when bound to a receptor
What is an antagonist?
Drug that reduces the effect of an agonist at a given receptor
What is an inverse agonist?
A drug that produces a negative effect when bound to a receptor.
What is efficacy (Emax)?
The maximum response achievable from a drug
What is potency?
The dose of a drug required to produce a specific effect of given intensity
What 2 things does the potency of a drug depend on?
Efficacy and affinity
True or false? The rate that a drug binds to receptor molecules can be linked to the activity that we can see (response)
True - Response/ Effect equation
How can the concentration of the agonist bound to the receptor be displaced?
An artificially introduced antagonistCompetitive antagonism
What is non-competitive antagonism?
Where an antagonist may not bind to the same part of the target siteAnon-competitive antagonistbinds to an allosteric (non-agonist) site on the receptor -prevents activation of the receptor.
What is inverse agonism?
An agent (inverse agonist)binds to the same receptor as anagonistbut induces anoppositeresponseto that of the agonist.
What is the difference between an antagonist and an agonist?
Antagonist usually blocks the receptor thus reducing the effect of the agonistInverse agonists do result in an effect but it’sthe opposite to the agonist
True or false? You can antagonise inverse agonism just as much as normal agonism?
True