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ABSTRACT:The reductive metabolism of a series of 3-(indol-1-yl)-1,2-benzisoxazoles was examined in vitro using rat liver microsomes. 3-(Indol-1-yl)-1,2-benzisoxazole was reduced to the corresponding amidine (resulting from N-O bond cleavage) under anaerobic conditions. The reaction required viable microsomes and NADPH and was inhibited by carbon monoxide, air, and ketoconazole, suggesting the involvement of cytochrome P450 enzymes. The amidine was subsequently nonenzymatically hydrolyzed to 1-salicylindole, which in turn was hydrolyzed to indole. Addition of electron-withdrawing substituents (Cl ؊ , MeSO 2 ؊ ) at the 6-position of the benzisoxazole ring resulted in a significant increase in the rate of substrate reduction. Introduction of electron-withdrawing substituents on the indole ring likewise increased the rate of substrate consumption but caused a substituent-dependent shift of the site of bond cleavage from the 1,2-isoxazole N-O bond to the C-N bond linking the 1,2-benzisoxazole to the indole moiety. In the case of 3-(2-chloro-3-methanesulfoxylindol-1-yl)-1,2-benzisoxazole, C-N bond cleavage was nearly quantitative, and products resulting from N-O bond reduction were not observed. The overall rates of 3-(indol-1-yl)-1,2-benzisoxazoles reduction were found to be substrate concentration-dependent and observed Michaelis-Mententype behavior. The apparent V max of substrate reduction by rat liver microsomes correlated negatively with the free energy of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (E LUMO ) calculated semiempirically using a parameterized model 3 (PM3), and suggested that the initial electron transfer was rate-determining and that the E LUMO could be used as an indication of the susceptibility of 1,2-isoxazoles to undergo reductive metabolism.The 1,2-isoxazole heterocycle is found in several marketed drugs including the anticonvulsant zonisamide and the antipsychotic iloperidone. One particular feature of the 1,2-isoxazole ring is that it is prone to reductive metabolism resulting in cleavage of the N-O bond (Dalvie et al., 2002). The susceptibility of 1,2-isoxazoles to reductive N-O bond cleavage was first observed when the insecticide isoxathion [O,O-diethyl O-(5-phenyl-3-1,2-isoxazolyl)-phosphorothioate] was administered orally to rats (Ando et al., 1975) and hippuric acid was isolated from urine. In vitro studies indicated that 3-hydroxy-5-phenyl-1,2-isoxazole, a metabolite found in urine as well, was reduced to benzoylacetamide and further metabolized to benzoic acid when incubated with rat liver S9 fractions in the presence of NADPH. More recently, it was shown that zonisamide undergoes extensive reductive metabolism in vivo and in vitro. In the rat, 2-(sulfamoylacetyl)-phenol glucuronide and 2-(1-aminosulfamoylethyl)-phenol, two metabolites identified in rat urine, were most likely formed from a common imine intermediate that resulted from N-O bond cleavage (Stiff and Zemaitis, 1990). It was subsequently shown that metaboli...