An in vivo role of Mrp2 in the rat hepatocytes by immunocytochemistry for amoxicillin using the transporter-deficient EHBR

New insights in the biology of ABC transporters ABCC2 and ABCC3: impact on drug disposition

INTRODUCTION

For the elimination of environmental chemicals and metabolic waste products, the body is equipped with a range of broad specificity transporters that are present in excretory organs as well as in several epithelial blood-tissue barriers.

AREAS COVERED

ABCC2 and ABCC3 (also known as MRP2 and MRP3) mediate the transport of various conjugated organic anions, including many drugs, toxicants and endogenous compounds. This review focuses on the physiology of these transporters, their roles in drug disposition and how they affect drug sensitivity and toxicity. It also examines how ABCC2 and ABCC3 are coordinately regulated at the transcriptional level by members of the nuclear receptor (NR) family of ligand-modulated transcription factors and how this can be therapeutically exploited.

EXPERT OPINION

Mutations in both ABCC2 and ABCC3 have been associated with changes in drug disposition, sensitivity and toxicity. A defect in ABCC2 is associated with Dubin-Johnson syndrome, a recessively inherited disorder characterized by conjugated hyperbilirubinemia. Pharmacological manipulation of the activity of these transporters can potentially improve the pharmacokinetics and thus therapeutic activity of substrate drugs but also affect the physiological function of these transporters and consequently ameliorate associated disease states.

How drugs get into cells: tested and testable predictions to help discriminate between transporter-mediated uptake and lipoidal bilayer diffusion

One approach to experimental science involves creating hypotheses, then testing them by varying one or more independent variables, and assessing the effects of this variation on the processes of interest. We use this strategy to compare the intellectual status and available evidence for two models or views of mechanisms of transmembrane drug transport into intact biological cells. One (BDII) asserts that lipoidal phospholipid Bilayer Diffusion Is Important, while a second (PBIN) proposes that in normal intact cells Phospholipid Bilayer diffusion Is Negligible (i.e., may be neglected quantitatively), because evolution selected against it, and with transmembrane drug transport being effected by genetically encoded proteinaceous carriers or pores, whose “natural” biological roles, and substrates are based in intermediary metabolism. Despite a recent review elsewhere, we can find no evidence able to support BDII as we can find no experiments in intact cells in which phospholipid bilayer diffusion was either varied independently or measured directly (although there are many papers where it was inferred by seeing a covariation of other dependent variables). By contrast, we find an abundance of evidence showing cases in which changes in the activities of named and genetically identified transporters led to measurable changes in the rate or extent of drug uptake. PBIN also has considerable predictive power, and accounts readily for the large differences in drug uptake between tissues, cells and species, in accounting for the metabolite-likeness of marketed drugs, in pharmacogenomics, and in providing a straightforward explanation for the late-stage appearance of toxicity and of lack of efficacy during drug discovery programmes despite macroscopically adequate pharmacokinetics. Consequently, the view that Phospholipid Bilayer diffusion Is Negligible (PBIN) provides a starting hypothesis for assessing cellular drug uptake that is much better supported by the available evidence, and is both more productive and more predictive.

Immunocytochemistry for vancomycin using a monoclonal antibody that reveals accumulation of the drug in rat kidney and liver

We prepared monoclonal antibodies against N-(γ-maleimidobutyryloxy)succinimide-conjugated vancomycin (VM). The monoclonal antibody was specific for conjugated or free VM. The monoclonal antibody enabled us to develop an immunocytochemical method for detecting the uptake of VM in the rat kidney and liver. Three hours after a single intravenous (i.v.) injection of VM at the therapeutic dose, the immunocytochemistry revealed that VM accumulated in large amounts in both the S1 and S2 segments and in much smaller amounts in the S3 segment of the proximal tubules as well as in the distal tubules and collecting ducts. The drug was detected in the cytoplasm, cytoplasmic irregular granules, nuclei, and microvilli of the proximal tubule cells. The distal tubules and collecting ducts contained scattered swollen cells in which both the nuclei and cytoplasm were heavily immunostained. Twenty-four hours after injection, most of the swollen cells returned back to normal size and had somewhat decreased immunostaining. Also, significant amounts of VM remained accumulated for as long as 8 days postadministration. In the liver, similar drug accumulation was observed in the Kupffer cells and the endothelial cells of the hepatic sinusoids but not in the hepatocytes, suggesting that vancomycin cannot be eliminated via the liver. Immunoelectron microscopic studies demonstrated that in the collecting ducts, uptake of VM occurred exclusively in the lysosomes and cytoplasm of the principal cells and scarcely in the intercalated cells. Furthermore, double fluorescence staining using rats simultaneously administered with VM and gentamicin strongly suggests that both drugs colocalized in lysosomes in the proximal tubule cells of kidneys.