In the last few decades, nasal administration has received a great deal of attention as a rationale for the systemic delivery of many drugs.1) The range of compounds investigated for possible nasal application varies greatly from very lipophilic drugs to polar, hydrophilic molecules including peptides and proteins.2) The relatively high permeability of the nasal epithelium, its high vascularization and the avoidance of hepatic first-pass metabolism makes nasal application a promising alternative, especially for drugs exhibiting high metabolism in the intestine and/or liver.Oral drug absorption can be estimated from in vitro transepithelial transport across the Caco-2 monolayer with various systems.3-5) These systems are responsible for screening of huge number of new drug candidates which are synthesized through combinatorial chemistry and pharmacologically screened with an in vitro high throughput system. Although nasal administration has been considered important as an alternative to oral application, as mentioned above, no prediction system has been developed so far. A prediction system would greatly help the development of nasal medications.Some respiratory epithelial cells possess cilia on their surface. The cilia beat in a coordinated fashion to transport the mucous layer, which covers the surface of the epithelium, to the nasopharynx, where it is swallowed. [6][7][8] The combined action of the mucus layer and cilia is called mucociliary clearance (MC). It is an important nonspecific defense mechanism of the respiratory tract to protect the body against noxious inhaled materials. Due to MC, drugs applied to the nasal cavity are translocated to the nasopharynx and, thereafter, to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, together with the mucus layer. Some fraction of the nasally-administered drug undergoes absorption from the GI tract. In order to develop a predictive system for fractional drug absorption after nasal application, the kinetic characteristics of mucociliary clearance must be clarified and correctly combined in the kinetic model.In the previous manuscript, 9) five non-degradable drugs were selected as model drugs and their fractional absorption following nasal and oral application, and their permeability to the Caco-2 monolayer (P Caco-2 ) were examined. The methods for the calculation of fractional absorption from the nasal cavity and from the GI tract after nasal application were also described. The relationship between fractional absorption and P Caco-2 was discussed, and the feasibility to predict drug absorption following nasal administration from P Caco-2 was indicated. The first aim of this research is to clarify the details of MC. For this purpose, the surgical operation reported by Hirai et al. 10) was not done on the esophagus and trachea, and the animal was kept conscious for as long as possible during the animal study. Based on the information on MC, the second aim is to propose a kinetic model to predict drug absorption following nasal application to rats from P Caco-2 . Various fractiona...