Analytical strategies for the screening and evaluation of chemically reactive drug metabolites

Abstract

Background: Metabolic activation leading to formation of chemically reactive drug metabolites is a long-standing issue for drug development inasmuch as some, but not all, reactive intermediates play a role as mediators of drug-induced toxicities. The risk assessment profile/decision-making guide requires a comprehensive understanding of bioactivation mechanism(s), quantitative magnitude and cellular consequences of this principal and continued safety attrition. Objective: To evaluate analytical methodologies with improved sensitivity, selectivity and throughput for the analysis of reactive metabolites. Conclusions: Identification and quantification of short-lived electrophilic intermediates through appropriate trapping experiments have become relatively straightforward. Minimizing the bioactivation potential of drug candidates during the discovery/lead optimization phase has been adopted as a default strategy. Together with advances of proteomics, metabolomics and toxicogenomics, an integrated multitier approach possibly provides a deeper insight into mechanistic aspects of drug-induced toxicities, and contributes to bridging the relationships between metabolic activation, drug–protein adduct formation and their toxicological consequences.

Keywords::

• bioactivation
• covalent binding
• lead optimization
• protein targets
• reactive metabolites

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