Report from the EPAA workshop: in vitro ADME in safety testing used by EPAA industry sectors.

There are now numerous in vitro and in silico ADME alternatives to in vivo assays but how do different industries incorporate them into their decision tree approaches for risk assessment, bearing in mind that the chemicals tested are intended for widely varying purposes? The extent of the use of animal tests is mainly driven by regulations or by the lack of a suitable in vitro model. Therefore, what considerations are needed for alternative models and how can they be improved so that they can be used as part of the risk assessment process? To address these issues, the European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) working group on prioritization, promotion and implementation of the 3Rs research held a workshop in November, 2008 in Duesseldorf, Germany. Participants included different industry sectors such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, industrial- and agro-chemicals.

Xenobiotic transport across isolated brain microvessels studied by confocal microscopy.

To identify specific transporters that drive xenobiotics from central nervous system to blood, the accumulation of fluorescent drugs was studied in isolated capillaries from rat and pig brain using confocal microscopy and quantitative image analysis. Luminal accumulation of daunomycin and of fluorescent derivatives of cyclosporine A (CSA) and ivermectin was concentrative, specific, and energy-dependent (inhibition by NaCN). Transport was reduced by PSC 833, ivermectin, verapamil, CSA, and vanadate, but not by leukotriene C(4) (LTC(4)), indicating the involvement of P-glycoprotein.

Interactions of HIV protease inhibitors with ATP-dependent drug export proteins.

We used renal proximal tubules from a teleost fish (killifish; Fundulus heteroclitus), fluorescent substrates and confocal microscopy to study the interactions between human immunodeficiency virus protease inhibitors and drug-transporting ATPases. Both saquinavir and ritonavir inhibited luminal accumulation of a fluorescent cyclosporin A derivative (a substrate for P-glycoprotein) and of fluorescein methotrexate [a substrate for multidrug resistance-associated protein 2 (Mrp2)]. Of the two protease inhibitors, ritonavir was the more potent inhibitor of transport by a factor of at least 20.