The transport characteristics of six fluoroquinolones (FQs) with various lipophilicities were compared in a Calu-3 cell model. For each FQ, an active polarized transport was observed in the direction of the apical side. However, the apparent permeability of FQs resulted from active transport and passive diffusion that were highly variable between compounds and mainly governed by lipophilicity. Therefore, active transport was predominant for compounds with relatively low lipophilicity but minor for FQs with higher lipophilicity.Fluoroquinolones (FQs) have been shown to be substrates of efflux transport systems, including P-glycoprotein (P-gp), in various tissues and cell lines (1). We have recently shown that P-gp is expressed in Calu-3 lung epithelial cells and that it is responsible for an active efflux transport of moxifloxacin (MXF) as a representative FQ (2). The objective of this new study was to compare the diffusion characteristics of several FQs with various lipophilicities, differentiating between passive diffusion and active transport, and to determine their relative contributions to the overall diffusion through Calu-3 cells.Ciprofloxacin (CIP) hydrochloride and moxifloxacin (MXF) hydrochloride were kindly supplied by Bayer Healthcare (Leverkusen, Germany); grepafloxacin (GRX) hydrochlorate was supplied by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. (Tokyo, Japan); and PSC-833 was supplied by Novartis (Basel, Switzerland). Commercial solutions of levofloxacin (LVX) and pefloxacin (PFX) from, respectively, Sanofi Aventis (Paris, France) and Rhône-Poulenc-Rorer (Antony, France) were used. Norfloxacin (NOR) was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich. Other chemicals and reagents had the same origins as previously described (2). Calu-3 cell culture, transport, and inhibition studies as well as tight junction integrity control were done as previously described (2), with FQ concentrations set at 50 M, corresponding to a third of the apparent K m for MXF transport (2), and chosen to limit the risk of efflux transporter saturation. FQ partition coefficients between octanol and pH 7.4 buffered solution (log D) were taken from the literature: NOR, Ϫ1.16, and CIP, Ϫ0.93 (10); LVX, Ϫ0.41, and GRX, 0.03 (11); MXF, Ϫ0.28 (5); and PFX, 0.25 (6). FQs were assayed by highperformance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection using the same method as for MXF (2), except that excitatory and emission wavelengths were set at 285 and 490 nm, respectively, for MXF and LVX and at 285 and 444 nm, respectively, for GRX, PFX, CIP, and NOR and that the flow rate was 0.5 ml/min. The precisions intra-and interday for FQs were satisfactory, with CV values between 0.3 and 6.7%. Apparent permeability (P app ) values were obtained according to the following equation: P app ϭ Q/(T ϫ A ϫ C 0 ), where Q is the amount of drug in g that appeared in the acceptor compartment, T is the incubation time of 60 min, A is the semipermeable membrane surface area of 4.67 cm 2 , and C 0 is the initial concentration of FQ in the donor compartment in g/cm Ϫ3 . The efflux r...