Acetic acid ester prodrugs, hydrolysis

Like in Chapt. 7, we begin the discussion with acetates, since acetic acid is the simplest nontoxic acyl group, formic acid being less innocuous. An informative study was carried out to compare the kinetics of hydrolysis of two types of corticosteroid esters, namely methyl steroid-21-oates (which are active per se) and acetyl steroid-21-ols (which are prodrugs), as exemplified by methyl prednisolonate (8.69) and prednisolone-21-acetate (8.70), respectively [89]. In the presence of rat liver microsomes, the rate of hydrolytic inactivation of methyl steroid-21-oates was much slower than the rate of hydrolytic activation of acetyl steroid-21-ols. Thus, while the Km values were ca. 0.1 -0.3 mM for all substrates, the acetic acid ester prodrugs and the methyl ester drugs had Vmax values of ca. 20 and 0.15 nmol min-1 mg-1, respectively. It can be postulated that the observed rates of hydrolysis were determined by the acyl moiety, in other words by the liberation of the carboxylic acid from the acyl-enzyme intermediate (see Chapt. 3). 

Prodrugs of FR900098 with increased oral anti-malarial efficacy were obtained by masking the polar phosphonate moiety as acyloxyalkyl esters. The acyloxyethyl ester (527), which is expected to release only acetic acid and acetaldehyde upon hydrolysis in addition to the active compound, was at least twice as active as FR900098 (Figure 109). " ... 

---