Drugs and other chemicals frequently bind nonspecifically to the constituents of an in vitro incubation mixture, particularly the enzyme source [e.g., human liver microsomes (HLM)]. Correction for nonspecific binding (NSB) is essential for the accurate calculation of the kinetic parameters K m , Cl int , and K i . Many tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are lipophilic organic bases that are nonionized at physiologic pH. Attempts to measure the NSB of several TKIs to HLM by equilibrium dialysis proved unsuccessful, presumably due to the limited aqueous solubility of these compounds. Thus, the addition of detergents to equilibrium dialysis samples was investigated as an approach to measure the NSB of TKIs. The binding of six validation set nonionized lipophilic bases (felodipine, isradipine, loratidine, midazolam, nifedipine, and pazopanib) to HLM (0.25 mg/ml) was shown to be unaffected by the addition of CHAPS (6 mM) to the dialysis medium. This approach was subsequently applied to measurement of the binding of axitinib, dabrafenib, erlotinib, gefitinib, ibrutinib, lapatinib, nilotinib, nintedanib, regorafenib, sorafenib, and trametinib to HLM (0.25 mg/ml). As with the validation set drugs, attainment of equilibrium was demonstrated in HLM-HLM and buffer-buffer control dialysis experiments. Values of the fraction unbound to HLM ranged from 0.14 (regorafenib and sorafenib) to 0.93 (nintedanib), and were generally consistent with the known physicochemical determinants of drug NSB. The extensive NSB of many TKIs to HLM underscores the importance of correction for TKI binding to HLM and, presumably, other enzyme sources present in in vitro incubation mixtures.
IntroductionIn vitro approaches, using human liver microsomes (HLMs), human hepatocytes, or recombinant proteins as the enzyme source are used widely to characterize the kinetics of drug metabolism and drug-drug interaction potential (Houston, 1994;Obach, 1999;Rostami-Hodjegan and Tucker, 2007;Miners et al., 2010). However, numerous drugs, especially lipophilic organic bases and neutral compounds, bind nonspecifically to the microsomal membrane. Importantly, nonspecific binding (NSB) reduces the concentration of the unbound drug in the incubation medium, resulting in overestimation of the measured kinetic constants K m (or S 50 ) and the inhibitor constant K i . Consequently, in vitro intrinsic clearance (determined as V max /K m ) and inhibitory drug-drug interaction potential (assessed as [I]/K i , where [I] is the inhibitor concentration) are both underpredicted (Obach, 1999;McLure et al., 2000;Margolis and Obach, 2003;Grime and Riley, 2006;Miners et al., 2006Miners et al., , 2010. Thus, it is now widely accepted that NSB should be accounted for when kinetic parameters are calculated from in vitro metabolism and inhibition studies.Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are an emerging group of drugs used in the treatment of many forms of cancer and some other diseases (e.g., idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis). Typically, TKIs are lipophilic (log P values . 2....