The Application of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to Drug Metabolism Studies

Abstract

1. The applications of n.m.r. spectroscopy studies to drug metabolism, both in vitro (biofluids, isolated cells, excised tissue samples, isolated organs) and in vivo (animals, humans) are reviewed.

2. N.m.r. is a relatively insensitive technique, but it has the great advantage of being non-invasive and non-destructive, i.e. it allows a direct study of intact biological samples.

3. The majority of studies examined deal with ¹⁹F-n.m.r. spectroscopy mainly because of the favourable n.m.r. characteristics of this nucleus, and the low level of endogenous fluorine which gives no detectable ¹⁹F signal. However, the potential utility of ¹H-³¹P- and ¹³C-n.m.r. is also emphasized.