Partition coefficients drug molecules

The ending caine stems from cocaine, the first clinically employed local anaesthetic. Procaine and tetracaine are ester-linked substances, the others are amides. Amide bonded local anaesthetics usually contain two i s in their name, ester-bonded only one. In the structure drawings, the lipophilic portion of the molecule is depicted at the left, the amine at the right. The asterisk marks the chiral centre of the stereoisomeric drugs. Lipid solubility is given as the logarithm of the water octanol partition coefficient, log(P). 

Nys, G. G., Rekker, R. F. Statistical analysis of a series of partition coefficients with special reference to the predictability of folding of drug molecules. Introduction of hydrophobic fragmental constants (/-values). Chim. Therap. 1973, 8, 521-535. 

Such a parabolic relation has the following incidence on drug delivery a molecule with a low partition coefficient will partition slowly from water into a lipid membrane. If the receptor is within or beyond that membrane, such a molecule will have a low probability of reaching it in the time interval under study. Conversely, molecules which are highly lipophilic will readily partition into the first of a series of lipid membranes, but will be held there and thus slowed down in their random walk to their site of action. Hence, optimal transport conditions are clearly achieved by drugs of intermediate partition coefficient, with no transfer step being too low. 

One of the key parameters for correlating molecular structure and chemical properties with bioavailability has been transcorneal flux or, alternatively, the corneal permeability coefficient. The epithelium has been modeled as a lipid barrier (possibly with a limited number of aqueous pores that, for this physical model, serve as the equivalent of the extracellular space in a more physiological description) and the stroma as an aqueous barrier (Fig. 11). The endothelium is very thin and porous compared with the epithelium [189] and often has been ignored in the analysis, although mathematically it can be included as part of the lipid barrier. Diffusion through bilayer membranes of various structures has been modeled for some time [202] and adapted to ophthalmic applications more recently [203,204]. For a series of molecules of similar size, it was shown that the permeability increases with octa-nol/water distribution (or partition) coefficient until a plateau is reached. Modeling of this type of data has led to the earlier statement that drugs need to be both... 

Figure 2.1 Transport model diagram, depicting two aqueous cells separated by a membrane barrier. The drug molecules are introduced in the donor cell. The concentration gradient in the membrane drives the molecules in the direction of the acceptor compartment. The apparent partition coefficient, Kd = 2. [Avdeef, A., Curr. Topics Med. Chem., 1, 277-351 (2001). Reproduced with permission from Bentham Science Publishers, Ltd.]...

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) (see Section 3.5) has been used to determine partition coefficients [320-322]. Lipid vesicles or micelles are added to the buffer whose pH is adjusted to different values. Since drug molecules partition to a different extent as a function of pH, the analysis of mobility vs pH data yields log P values. 

Figures 7.31a-c clearly show that after some critical soy content in dodecane, Pe values decrease with increasing soy, for both sink and sinkless conditions. [This is not due to a neglect of membrane retention, as partly may be the case in Fig. 7.23 permeabilities here have been calculated with Eq. (7.21).] Section 7.6 discusses the Kubinyi bilinear model (Fig. 7.19d) in terms of a three-compartment system water, oil of moderate lipophilicity, and oil of high lipophilicity. Since lipo-some(phospholipid)-water partition coefficients (Chapter 5) are generally higher than alkane-water partition coefficients (Chapter 4) for drug-like molecules, soy lecithin may be assumed to be more lipophilic than dodecane. It appears that the increase in soy concentration in dodecane can be treated by the Kubinyi analysis. In the original analysis [23], two different lipid phases are selected at a fixed ratio (e.g., Fig. 7.20), and different molecules are picked over a range of lipophilicities.

Avdeef et al. [556] measured the PAMPA permeabilities of a series of drug molecules and natural products using both dodecane- and (dodecane + 2%DOPC)-coated filters. It was proposed that a new H-bonding scale could be explored, based not on partition coefficients but on permeabilities. 

This book is written for the practicing pharmaceutical scientist involved in absorption-distribution-metabolism-excretion (ADME) measurements who needs to communicate with medicinal chemists persuasively, so that newly synthesized molecules will be more drug-like. ADME is all about a day in the life of a drug molecule (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion). Specifically, this book attempts to describe the state of the art in measurement of ionization constants (p Ka), oil-water partition coefficients (log PI log D), solubility, and permeability (artificial phospholipid membrane barriers). Permeability is covered in considerable detail, based on a newly developed methodology known as parallel artificial membrane permeability assay (PAMPA). 

Faller and Wohnsland [18, 19] developed the PAMPA assay using phospholipid-free hexadecane, supported on 10 pm-thick polycarbonate filters, and were able to demonstrate interesting predictions. Their PAMPA method appeared to be a satisfactory substitute for obtaining alkane/water partition coefficients, which are usually very difficult to measure directly, due to the poor solubility of drug molecules in alkanes. Apparently, membrane retention was not measured. 

One of the original concepts governing oral absorption of organic molecules is the pH partition hypothesis . This hypothesis states that only the nonionized form of the drug is able to permeate the membranes of epithelial cells lining the GI tract [26], According to the classical pH-partition theory, permeability is expected to correlate not with the intrinsic partition coefficient but with the so-called distribution coefficient D of the solute [27], where D is defined as ... 

The genesis of in silico oral bioavailability predictions can be traced back to Lip-inski s Rule of Five and others qualitative attempts to describe drug-like molecules [13-15]. These processes are useful primarily as a qualitative tool in the early stage library design and in the candidate selection. Despite its large number of falsepositive results, Lipinski s Rule of Five has come into wide use as a qualitative tool to help the chemist design bioavailable compounds. It was concluded that compounds are most likely to have poor absorption when the molecular weight is >500, the calculated octan-l-ol/water partition coefficient (c log P) is >5, the number of H-bond donors is >5, and the number of H-bond acceptors is >10. Computation of these properties is now available as an ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion) screen in commercial software such as Tsar (from Accelrys). The rule-of-5 should be seen as a qualitative, rather than quantitative, predictor of absorption and permeability [16, 17]. 

Absorption, in general, is treated as a physicochemical transport process based on computations of logP (the octanol/water partition coefficient) and solubility governed by factors such as polar surface area on the molecule. It is conceivable that SNPs in drug transporter genes will affect the pharmacokinetic properties of compounds and, therefore, these may have to be taken into consideration in the design process. 

The rate of diffusion is proportional to the concentration of molecule in the vehicle. The relationship is linear only at low molecule concentrations and only applies to soluble molecule in the vehicle. The latter factor may explain the variable therapeutic effects of different formulations of the same drug molecule. The partition coefficient is a measure of the molecule s ability to escape from the vehicle and is... 

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