Current Drug Metabolism - Volume 8, Issue 6, 2007

In recent years, there has been a globally increasing application of herbal medicines and dietary supplements to treat various chronic diseases and to promote health. However, there are increasing clinical reports on the organ toxicities associated with consumption of herbal medicines. This review updates the knowledge on metabolic activation of herbal components and its clinical and toxicological implications. Like many sy Read More

Cancer chemotherapy is characterized by a broad range of efficacy and toxicity among patients. Most anticancer drugs show wide interindividual variability in pharmacokinetics and have narrow therapeutic windows. Since drug metabolism is often an essential determinant of interindividual variability in pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenomic studies of drug-metabolizing enzymes are expected to rationalize cancer chemother Read More

Plasma α1-acid glycoprotein (AGP) is an important modulator of drug disposition, since it binds and transports of a vast array of pharmaceutical agents. The ABC transporter efflux pump, P-glycoprotein (P-gp), also recognizes and binds a broad range of weakly basic and uncharged xenobiotics. Its efflux activity plays a key role in pharmacokinetics of drugs, and overexpression of P-gp in malignant cells confers multid Read More

Based on initial studies with bacterial CYP101A1, a popular concept emerged predicting that substrate-induced low-to-high spin conversion of P450s is universally associated with shifts of the midpoint potential to a more positive value to maximize rates of electron transfer and metabolic turnover. However, evaluation of the plethora of observations with pro- and eukaryotic hemoproteins suggests a caveat as to generalization of thi Read More

In recent years several arylpiperazine derivatives have reached the stage of clinical application, mainly for the treatment of depression, psychosis or anxiety. Examples are the pyrimidinylpiperazine buspirone, the chlorophenylpiperazine derivatives nefazodone and trazodone, the dichlorophenylpiperazine aripiprazole and the benzisothiazolyl derivatives perospirone and ziprasidone. Most of them undergo extensive Read More

Objective: Herein we aim to test if pummelo furanocoumarins can inhibit cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A both in vitro and in vivo, and to explore the influence of CYP3A5*3 (GenBank AC005020: A22893→G) polymorphism in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacological response to felodipine. Method: Fruit juices of pummelo grapefruit (Citrus paradisi Macf., G), ‘Guanximiyou’ (C. grandis Osbeck vs. Guanxi, P) and ‘Changshanhu Read More

Genes encoding different cytochrome P450 (CYP) isoforms are regulated by endogenous hormones (e.g. pituitary hormones, thyroid hormones, glucocorticoids) which are all under control of the central nervous system. The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of lesions of brain dopaminergic pathways on the level and the activity of CYP isoforms (1A, 2A, 2B, 2C6, 2C11, 2D, 3A) in rat liver. At 48 h after les Read More

Cognitive decline occurs frequently after cardiac surgery and it may lead to patient morbidity. The purpose of this study is to focus on the static incidence of neuro-psychiatric impairment associated with altered inflammatory biomarkers in the cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF) that may provide an insight into the mechanisms of acute peri-operative cognitive disturbances related to heart surgery. Immunoassays were used to evalua Read More