Metabolism and excretion of TH-302 in dogs

Abstract

1. The metabolism and excretion of a hypoxically activating prodrug for the treatment of cancer, TH-302, were studied in beagle dogs following intravenous administration of 20 mg/kg ¹⁴C-TH-302.

2. TH-302 was extensively metabolized with total recovery of 75.1%, with 47.5% and 25.3% excreted through the urine and through the bile into the feces, respectively.

3. The three TH-302 metabolites in plasma were: DM7, a conjugate of TH-302 with glutathione replacing a bromine atom; DM5, a hydrolysis product of DM7 with loss of the glutamic acid moiety; and DM6, a hydrolysis product of DM5 with loss of the glycine moiety. DM6 and TH-302 were the major radioactive components in plasma and accounted for 69.8% and 27.3% of the total AUC, respectively.

4. The major metabolite in urine was DM6, which accounted for 22.7% of the administered dose. Two other metabolites identified in urine were: DM3, a dicysteine conjugate of TH-302; and DM4, which was formed by hydrolysis and loss of the 1-methyl-2-nitro-imidazol-5-yl methoxy moiety, followed by oxidation on the cysteinyl ethylamine moiety. DM1 and DM2 in urine accounted for 6.50 and 7.76% of administered dose and were not identified.

5. DM1 was the only fecal metabolite.

6. Further investigations are required to completely characterize the metabolism of TH-302.

Keywords::

• Nitroimidazole
• glutathione
• cysteine

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Donna Waggett for her bioanalysis and data analysis support; Robert Yuan for his support in identification and metabolite profiling and Lakshimi Ramanathan for conducting the Radio-HPLC analysis.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.