Theme 1 - General Principles of Drug action Flashcards
What is pharmacology?
What the drug does to the body. What the body does in response to the drug.
- How does the body system respond, change it’s body cellular or molecular to respond to that particular chemical added.
What is PharmacoDYNAMICS?
the effects of a drug on the body
- Molecular interactions by which drugs exert their effects
- Influence of drug concentration on the magnitude of response
(We would expect to ingest more drug and in turn get more effect. However, in reality, more drug will lead to either no more therapeutic effect or a toxic effect)
What does the study of PharmacoDYNAMICS allow us to do?
Determine the appropriate dose range for patients
Compare the effectiveness and safety of one drug to another
What is PharmacoKINETICS?
What are the stages?
what the body does to a drug
- process which tells us how often a patient needs medicine in terms with their metabolsim
- Absorption: From site of administration into the blood
- Distribution: Drug can reversibly leave the bloodstream and distribute into
the interstitial and intracellular fluids of tissues - Metabolism: Body inactivates the drug through enzymatic modification
- Excretion: Drug is eliminated from the body in urine, bile or faeces
What does the study of PharmacoKINETICS allow us to do?
Design and optimise treatment regimens for individuals
e.g. deciding on the route of administration, frequency of drug administration, duration of treatment
Pathway of a drug to enter the bloodstream from the mouth
Mouth -> stomach -> intestines (absorbed through intestinal wall) -> Liver (metabolised) -> through liver portal vein into the blood
Blood goes through kidneys and gets filtered, so the drug will get filtered out
From what sources are drugs produced?
natural, synthetic and biologically engineered
By what method does the the drug interact with the targets?
- Shape (lock & key)
- Charge distribution: Specific charge across the drug, outside the drug, matches the drug on the target – allowing an introductions
(determines the type of bonds that hold the drug to the target)
What type of bonds can form upon drug interactions with the target?
(From weakest to strongest)
Van der Waals: electrons shift, one side has a greater charge than the next
Hydrogen: H positively bond to negative O or N atoms
Ionic: Negativly charged atoms are attracted to positively charged atoms
Covalent: Two bonded atoms share electrons
Which drugs act via their physico-chemical properties?
Antidotes, antacids, laxatives
What are the 4 targets for drug action?
Receptors: targets for endogenous transmitters
Enzymes: biological catalysts which facilitate biochemical reactions
Ion channels: pores which span membranes to allow the selective passage of ions
Carrier molecules: transport ions and small organic molecules across cell membranes
How do drugs act at Receptors?
Agonists activate the receptor
Antagonists block the action of agonists
How do drugs act at Ion channels?
Either block or modulate the opening/closing
Drugs may increase the frequency of opening, changing the transmission potential or capacity of the ion channel (how much of that ionic conduction can occur)
How do drugs act at upon Enzymes?
Either inhibit or act as a false substrate
there to control biochemical reactions; as a drug target we can inhibit or act as a false substrate to the enzyme – stopping it from getting to its end point in a biochemical pathway
How do drugs act at upon Carriers?
Either transported in the place of the endogenous substrate or inhibit transport
What are the two Receptor binding sites?
Orthosteric: natural binding site
Allosteric: different binding site – normally a seperate (drug) binding site
How does Benzodiazepines act on a GABAa receptor?
Drug will bind to the ion channel, change the chloride conductance in the ion channel (normally membrane potential for chloride is negative charged)
↑ Amount of chloride going in = ↑ permeability = hyperpolarization of the cell = ↓excitability of the cell
Benzodiazepine does not have any effect by itself, it works with GABA to ↑ its effect – drug enhancing what normally happens at that ion channel. Greater hyperpolarization within the cell
Normal enzymatic process for inflammation or immune activation
Phospholipids in membrane go crazy, start to break down and
Phospholipids –> Arachidonic acid via Phospholipase A2 –> Prostaglandins via Cyclooxygenase
(Prostaglandins causes the problems associated with immune or inflammatory condition/action)
NSAIDs can interact with the key enzyme, Cyclooxygenase, stopping it from catalysing A.A into P –> alleviating the inflamations as we are not getting the prone inflammatory mediators being produced at the end of the cascade
Define Agonists & Antagonists
Agonist activates receptor
(ligand that combines with receptors to elicit a cellular response)
Antagonist blocks the action of agonist
Why do receptor subtypes elicit different cellular effects?
due to different specificities for what activates or inhibits them and different signal transduction mechanisms
Normally, how does a drug elicit a response from a receptor?
Drug molecule will bound to allosteric or ollosteric binding site, which is separate from the main structure of the receptor
= Conformational change, something happens structurly to the receptor – change in conformation = signal transduction
4 Main types of receptors
Ligand gated ion channels (Ionotropic)
G-protein coupled receptors
Enzyme (kinase) linked receptors
Nuclear (Intracellular) receptors
Two types of Ionotropic receptors + how do they work?
- Ligand-gated: channel linked receptors that require an agonist to open the channel
- Voltage-gated: not channel linked but requires a chanmge in electrecial charge across membrane to opne/close
What is the stucture of ionotropic receptors? + How does it help in its function
Pentomeric - 5 sections to ion channel
channels have an inward kink halfway down, which usually keeps it in a closed state. When agonist binds to extracellular binding space = conformational space so kink moves apart. Negativlty charged inside to cation selective
Multiple binding sites on the ion cannels, so multiple can bind at the same time