Volume 45, Issue 2 pp. 107-114
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Gender difference in the pharmacokinetics and metabolism of VX-548 in rats

Guilan Yu

Guilan Yu

Department of Pharmacy, Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China

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Xueying Zhou

Corresponding Author

Xueying Zhou

Department of Pharmacy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China

Correspondence

Xueying Zhou, Department of Pharmacy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning Province 116023, China.

Email: [email protected]

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First published: 04 April 2024

Abstract

VX-548 is a sodium channel blocker, which acts as an analgesic. This study aims to investigate the gender differences in the pharmacokinetics and metabolism of VX-548 in rats. After intravenous administration, the area under the curve (AUC0−t) of VX-548 was much higher in female rats (1505.8 ± 47.3 ng·h/mL) than in male rats (253.8 ± 6.3 ng·h/mL), and the clearance in female rats (12.5 ± 0.8 mL/min/kg) was much lower than in male rats (65.1 ± 1.7 mL/min/kg). After oral administration, the AUC0−t in female rats was about 50-fold higher than that in male rats. The oral bioavailability in male rats was 11% while it was 96% in female rats. An in vitro metabolism study revealed that the metabolism of VX-548 in female rat liver microsomes was much slower than in male rats. Further metabolite identification suggested that the significant gender difference in pharmacokinetics was attributed to demethylation. The female rat liver microsomes showed a limited ability to convert VX-548 into desmethyl VX-548. Phenotyping experiments indicated that the formation of desmethyl VX-548 was mainly catalyzed by CYP3A2 and CYP2C11 using rat recombinant CYPs. Overall, we revealed that the pharmacokinetics and metabolism of VX-548 in male and female rats showed significant gender differences.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

We declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work, there is no professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in, or the review of, the manuscript.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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