The role of hepatic transport and metabolism in the interactions between pravastatin or repaglinide and two rOatp inhibitors in rats

A change in the function or expression of hepatic drug transporters may have significant effect on the efficacy or safety of orally administered drugs. Although a number of clinical drug–drug interactions associated with hepatic transport proteins have been reported, in practice it is not always straightforward to discriminate other pathways (e.g. drug metabolism) from being involved in these interactions.The present study was designed to assess the interactions between organic anion transporting polypeptide (Oatp) substrates (pravastatin or repaglinide) and inhibitors (spironolactone or diphenhydramine) in vivo in rats. The mechanisms behind the interactions were then investigated using in vitro tools (isolated hepatocytes and rat liver microsomes). The results showed a significant increase in the systemic exposures of pravastatin (2.5-fold increase in AUC) and repaglinide (1.8-fold increase in AUC) after co-administration of spironolactone to rats. Diphenhydramine increased the AUC of repaglinide by 1.4-fold. The in vivo interactions observed in rats between Oatp substrates and inhibitors may a priori be classified as transport-mediated drug–drug interactions. However, mechanistic studies performed in vitro using both isolated rat hepatocytes and rat liver microsomes showed that the interaction between pravastatin and spironolactone may be solely linked to the inhibition of pravastatin uptake in liver. On the contrary, the inhibition of cytochrome P450 seemed to be the reason for the interactions observed between repaglinide and spironolactone.Although the function and structure of transport proteins may vary between rats and humans, the approach used in the present study can be applied to humans and help to understand the role of drug transport and drug metabolism in a given drug–drug interaction. This is important to predict and mitigate the risk of drug–drug interactions for a candidate drug in pre-clinical development, it is also important for the optimal design of drug–drug interactions studies in the clinic.

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