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Abstract
1. Finding and developing inhibitors of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) from natural products is highly recommended. Daphnetin, a naturally occurring catechol from the family thymelaeaceae, has a chemical structure similar to several potent COMT inhibitors reported previously. Here the potential of daphnetin and its Phase II metabolites as inhibitors of COMT was investigated with human liver cytosol (HLC).
2. Daphnetin and its methylated metabolite (8-O-methyldaphnetin) were found to inhibit COMT-mediated dopamine O-methylation in a dose-dependent manner. The IC50 values for daphnetin (0.51∼0.53 μM) and 8-O-methyldaphnetin (22.5∼24.3 μM) were little affected by changes in HLC concentrations. Further kinetic analysis showed the differences in inhibition type and parameters (Ki) between daphnetin (competitive, 0.37 μM) and 8-O-methyldaphnetin (noncompetitive, 25.7 μM). Other metabolites, including glucuronidated and sulfated species, showed negligible inhibition against COMT. By using in vitro–in vivo extrapolation (IV-IVE), a 24.3-fold increase in the exposure of the COMT substrates was predicted when they are co-administrated with daphnetin.
3. With high COMT-inhibiting activity, daphnetin could serve as a lead compound for the design and development of new COMT inhibitors. Also, much attention should be paid to the clinical impact of combination of daphnetin and herbal preparations containing daphnetin with the drugs primarily cleared by COMT.
Declaration of interest
The authors state no conflict of interest. This work was supported by the National Science & Technology Major Project of China [2012ZX09506001 and 2012ZX10002011], the National Basic Research Program of China [2013CB531805], and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [81473181, 81402822, 81273590 and 81573501].