Abstract
The expression of drug transporters and metabolizing enzymes is a primary determinant of drug disposition. Chimeric mice with humanized liver, including PXB mice, are an available model that is permissive to the in vivo infection of hepatitis C virus (HCV), thus being a promising tool for investigational studies in development of new antiviral molecules. To investigate the potential of HCV infection to alter the pharmacokinetics of small molecule antiviral therapeutic agents in PXB mice, we have comprehensively determined the mRNA expression profiles of human ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, solute carrier (SLC) transporters, and cytochrome P450 (P450) enzymes in the livers of these mice under noninfected and HCV-infected conditions. Infection of PXB mice with HCV resulted in an increase in the mRNA expression levels of a series of interferon-stimulated genes in the liver. For the majority of genes involved in drug disposition, minor differences in the mRNA expression of ABC and SLC transporters as well as P450s between the noninfected and HCV-infected groups were observed. The exceptions were statistically significantly higher expression of multidrug resistance-associated protein 4 and organic anion-transporting polypeptide 2B1 and lower expression of organic cation transporter 1 and CYP2D6 in HCV-infected mice. Furthermore, the enzymatic activities of the major human P450s were, in general, comparable in the two experimental groups. These data suggest that the pharmacokinetic properties of small molecule antiviral therapies in HCV-infected PXB mice are likely to be similar to those in noninfected PXB mice. However, caution is needed in the translation of this relationship to HCV-infected patients as the PXB mouse model does not accurately reflect the pathology of patients with chronic HCV infection.
Footnotes
Article, publication date, and citation information can be found at http://dmd.aspetjournals.org.
doi:10.1124/dmd.109.031732.
↵ The online version of this article (available at http://dmd.aspetjournals.org) contains supplemental material.
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ABBREVIATIONS:
- SLC
- solute carrier
- ABC
- ATP-binding cassette
- HCV
- hepatitis C virus
- IFN
- interferon
- uPA/SCID
- urokinase plasminogen activator-transgenic severe combined immunodeficiency disorder
- PCR
- polymerase chain reaction
- ISG
- interferon-stimulated gene
- hGAPDH
- human glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase
- P450
- cytochrome P450
- LC
- liquid chromatography
- MS/MS
- tandem mass spectrometry
- MRP
- multidrug resistance-associated protein
- OATP
- organic anion-transporting polypeptide
- OCT
- organic cation transporter
- P-gp
- P-glycoprotein
- MDR
- multidrug resistance
- BSEP
- bile salt export pump
- NTCP
- Na+-taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide
- OAT
- organic ion transporter
- Ct
- cycle threshold.
- Received December 16, 2009.
- Accepted August 6, 2010.
- Copyright © 2010 by The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
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