Vol. 31, Issue 4, 373-383, April 2003

Segmental Intestinal Transporters and Metabolic Enzymes on Intestinal Drug Absorption

Debbie Tam, Rommel G. Tirona,¹ and K. Sandy Pang

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Recently, a physiologically-based, segregated flow model that incorporates separate intestinal tissue and flow to both a nonabsorptive and an absorptive outermost layer (enterocytes) was shown to better describe the observations on route-dependent morphine glucuronidation in the rat small intestine than a traditional physiologically-based model. These theoretical models were expanded, as the segmental segregated flow model and the segmental traditional model, to view the intestine as three segments of equal lengths receiving equal flows to accommodate heterogeneities in segmental transporter and metabolic functions. The influence of heterogeneity in absorptive, exsorptive, and metabolic functions on drug clearance, bioavailability (F), and metabolite formation after intravenous and oral dosing was examined for the intestine when the tissue was the only organ of removal. Simulations were performed for first-order conditions, when drug partitioned readily (flow-limited distribution) or less readily (membrane-limited distribution) into intestinal tissue, and for different gastrointestinal transit times. The intestinal clearance was found to be inversely related to the rate constant for absorption of a drug that was subjected to secretion and was positively correlated with the metabolic and secretory intrinsic clearances. F was positively correlated with the absorption rate constant but was inversely related to the metabolic and secretory intrinsic clearances. The gastrointestinal transit time decreased metabolite formation, increased clearance, and decreased F. The simulations further showed that a descending metabolic intrinsic clearance yielded a lower F and an ascending segmental distribution of metabolic intrinsic clearance yielded a higher F.