Vol. 30, Issue 10, 1143-1148, October 2002

Diclofenac-Induced Inactivation of CYP3A4 and Its Stimulation by Quinidine

Yasuhiro Masubuchi, Atsushi Ose, and Toshiharu Horie

Department of Biopharmaceutics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan

Incubation of human liver microsomes with diclofenac in the presence of NADPH resulted in a decrease in testosterone 6-hydroxylation activity. The decrease in the activity followed time- and concentration-dependent kinetics, required oxidative metabolism, and was resistant to reduced glutathione, suggesting that diclofenac causes a mechanism-based inactivation of cytochrome P450 (P450) 3A4 (CYP3A4). The inactivation was reproduced by using microsomes from B-lymphoblastoid cell lines expressing CYP3A4 instead of human liver microsomes. No other monooxygenase activities measured as indexes of P450 enzymes; CYP2C8, CYP2C9, or CYP2C19 was inactivated by the same incubation procedure. Quinidine, a stimulant of CYP3A4-mediated diclofenac 5-hydroxylation, did not affect the inactivation of CYP3A4 assessed by testosterone 6-hydroxylation activity but accelerated the inactivation assessed by diazepam 3-hydroxylation activity. These results supported the idea that diclofenac 5-hydroxylation is involved in the inactivation of CYP3A4 and described for the first time a stimulation of mechanism-based inactivation attributable to CYP3A4 heterotropic cooperativity. Preincubation of human liver microsomes with 5-hydroxydiclofenac instead of diclofenac did not cause the inactivation of CYP3A4, suggesting that 5-hydroxydiclofenac is not a precursor of a postulated reactive metabolite that inactivates CYP3A4, and thus 5-hydroxylation step is critical to inactivation of CYP3A4.