Transporter tools Caco-2 permeability

More than a decade ago, Caco-2 cells grown on permeable supports were introduced as an experimental tool for mechanistic studies of intestinal drug transport [1-4]. At the same time it was suggested that the Caco-2 model was suitable for screening intestinal drug permeability and predicting the oral absorption potential... 

The use of Caco-2 cell monolayers has gained in popularity as an in vivo human absorption surrogate moreover, the monolayers are generally accepted as a primary absorption screening tool by several pharmaceutical companies [10]. However, Caco-2 cell permeability measurements exhibit certain limitations due to the mechanisms involved. Both passive and active pathways exist active transport tends to increase the absorption across the cells and, since Caco-2 cells overexpress the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) efflux pump, the absorption of some compounds across these cells may be underestimated. 

LLC-PK1 Cells derived from pig kidney epithelial cells (LLC-PK1) have been used as an alternative to Caco-2 cells for assessing the permeability for test compounds [153, 85], LLC-PK1 cells are more easily transfected than Caco-2 cells. Especially the LLC-PK1 line stably transfected with P-gp/MDRl has been reported as a tool to study bidirectional transport of compounds [142, 58, 180],... 

PAMPA-biomimetic-Caco-2-comparison Several in vitro assays have been developed to evaluate the Gl absorption of compounds. Our aim was to compare three of these methods (/) the BAMPA method, which offers a HT, noncellular approach to the measurement of passive transport ( ) the traditional Caco-2 cell assay, the use of which as a HT tool is limited by the long cell differentiation time (21 days) and (// ) The BioCoat HTS Caco-2 assay system, which reduces Caco-2 cell differentiation to three days. The transport of known compounds (such as cephalexin, propranolol, or chlorothiazide) was studied at pH 7.4 and 6.5 in BAMPA and both Caco-2 cell models. Permeability data obtained was correlated to known values of human absorption. Best correlations (f= 0.9) were obtained at pH 6.5 for BAMPA and at pH 7.4 for the Caco-2 cells grown for 21 days. The Caco-2 BioCoat HTS Caco-2 assay system does not seem to be adequate for the prediction of absorption. The overall results indicate that BAMPA and the 21 -day Caco-2 system can be complementary for an accurate prediction of human intestinal absorption. 

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