Many widely-used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs), e.g. ibuprofen, are extensively metabolised as their acyl glucuronides (AGs), and the reactivity of these AGs raises important questions regarding drug safety and toxicity. In order to understand better the structure-reactivity of these metabolites, we have performed a detailed study of the synthesis, structural analysis and computed transacylation reactivity of a set of acyl glucuronides (AGs) of phenylacetic acids with varying alpha-substitution. A selective acylation procedure was used to prepare all the desired 1-(phenyl)acetyl-beta-D-glucopyranuronic acids 9, 12, 13 and 15 as single 1beta-anomers in good yields. Their reactivity was measured using 1H NMR spectroscopy in pH 7.4 buffer: the dominance of transacylation over hydrolysis in this system was confirmed together with the measurement of half-lives of the 1beta-isomers of the AGs. The half-lives ranged from 20 min for compound 9 to 23 h for 15. The lack of any significant concentration dependence of the reactivity suggests that the main mechanism is intramolecular. A novel computational chemistry and modelling study was performed on both the ground states of the AGs and the transition states for acyl migration to search for correlations with the kinetic data and to probe the mechanistic detail of the acyl transfer. An excellent degree of correlation was found between the calculated activation energies and the rates of transacylation. Especially, transition state analysis provided for the first time a firm mechanistic explanation for the slower kinetics of the (S)-isomer AG 13 compared to the (R)-isomer 12, thus throwing important light on the pharmacokinetic behaviour of marketed NSAIDs.
Carboxylic acid-containing drugs are often metabolized to 1-beta-O-acyl glucuronides (AGs). These can undergo an internal chemical rearrangement, and the resulting reactive positional isomers can bind to endogenous proteins, with clear potential for adverse effects. Additionally any 1-beta-O-acyl-glucuronidated phase I metabolite of the drug can also show this propensity, and investigation of the adverse effect potential of a drug also needs to consider such metabolites. Here the transacylation of the common drug ibuprofen and two of its metabolites is investigated in vitro. 1-beta-O-Acyl (S)-ibuprofen glucuronide was isolated from human urine and also synthesized by selective acylation. Urine was also used as a source of the (R)-ibuprofen, (S)-2-hydroxyibuprofen, and (S,S)-carboxyibuprofen AGs. The degradation rates (a combination of transacylation and hydrolysis) were measured using 1H NMR spectroscopy, and the measured decrease in the 1-beta anomer over time was used to derive half-lives for the glucuronides. The biosynthetic and chemically synthesized (S)-ibuprofen AGs had half-lives of 3.68 and 3.76 h, respectively. (R)-Ibuprofen AG had a half-life of 1.79 h, a value approximately half that of the (S)-diastereoisomer, consistent with results from other 2-aryl propionic acid drug AGs. The 2-hydroxyibuprofen and carboxyibuprofen AGs gave half-lives of 5.03 and 4.80 h, considerably longer than that of either of the parent drug glucuronides. In addition, two (S)-ibuprofen glucuronides were synthesized with the glucuronide carboxyl function esterified with either ethyl or allyl groups. The (S)-ibuprofen AG ethyl ester and (S)-ibuprofen AG allyl esters were determined to have half-lives of 7.24 and 9.35 h, respectively. In order to construct useful structure-reactivity relationships, it is necessary to evaluate transacylation and hydrolysis separately, and here it is shown that the (R)- and (S)-ibuprofen AGs have different transacylation properties. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of structure-activity relationships.
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