ABSTRACT:In a previous study, the concentration-dependent permeability of P-glycoprotein (P-gp) substrate drugs, quinidine, verapamil, and vinblastine, in several cell monolayers with different levels of P-gp expression was analyzed kinetically to obtain fundamental parameters for P-gp-mediated transport, V max and K m(app) values. Both V max and K m(app) values of each drug were found to show linear correlations with the expression level of P-gp. These findings imply the possibility of estimating the V max and K m(app) values of P-gp substrate drugs in the in vivo intestinal membrane on the basis of the P-gp expression level. In the present study, concentrationdependent drug permeability to the rat small intestines (upper jejunum and ileum) was simulated on the basis of V max and K m(app) values of each drug estimated from the P-gp expression level in the rat small intestines. To validate the predictability of these procedures, drug permeability in the rat small intestines was measured by the in situ single-pass perfusion method. It was confirmed that simulated permeability of each drug in the rat jejunum and ileum corresponded well with permeability measured by the in situ single-pass perfusion method. This study clearly demonstrated the potential to estimate the permeability of P-gp substrate drugs in the human intestine from its P-gp expression level and thus the possibility to predict the oral absorption of those drugs.P-glycoprotein (P-gp), one of the most important efflux transporters in the field of biopharmacy, is an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter encoded by the multidrug resistance 1 gene (MDR1/ABCB1). P-gp is expressed not only in cancer cells but also in many normal tissues (Loo and Clarke, 1999). So far, many reports have described the effects of P-gp on the pharmacokinetic profiles of clinically important drugs, by denaturing absorption, distribution, and excretion. For example, P-gp located in the apical domain of the enterocytes of the gastrointestinal tract limits the uptake and absorption of its substrate drugs after oral administration (Hunter and Hirst, 1997;Meijer et al., 1997;Jonker et al., 1999). Because of the great impact of P-gp on the pharmacokinetic profiles of a variety of drugs, various in vitro experimental techniques are now used to identify the compounds subjected to P-gp-mediated efflux (Kim et al., 1998;Polli et al., 1999Polli et al., , 2001Susanto and Benet, 2002; Shirasaka et al., 2006a,b). However, it is still difficult to quantitatively predict the effect of P-gp on in vivo intestinal absorption of such drugs.In a previous study, we measured the apical (AP) to basal (BL) absorptive permeability of P-gp substrate drugs in several cultured cell monolayers with different expression levels of P-gp (Shirasaka et al., 2008). In all cell monolayers, AP to BL permeability of P-gp substrate drugs showed a sigmoid-type relation to their donor (AP) concentration and reached a maximal value at the higher concentration range because of the saturation of P-gp-mediated efflux. Con...