Anesthesia Pharmacology : General Principles: Pharmacokinetics
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Passive diffusion (aqueous or lipid environment): most common
Active transport: important for some drugs, particularly larger molecules.
Acqueous diffusion may occur:
Within large aqueous components (e.g.,interstitial space, cytosol)
Across epithelial membrane tight junctions
Across endothelial blood vessel lining
Through aqueous pores: allows diffusion of molecules with molecular weights up to 20,000 -- 30,000.
Driving force is the drug concentration gradient (described by Fick's Law ).
The driving force represents a tendency for molecules to move in the direction of higher concentration to lower concentration in accord with random molecular motion.
A traditional way of thinking about this is to imagine a fluid-filled container which is two sections divided by an imaginary plane.
The solution on one side is more concentrated in terms of some dissolved substance that is the solution on the other side of the boundary plane.
Recall that the molecules move randomly, suggesting that sometimes a molecule initially in the "low concentration" section can move to the "high concentration" section.
However, on balance, it is more likely that based on probability molecules will tend to move from the higher concentrations side to the lower concentrations side.
Suppose that initially there are 2,000 molecules on side A and 1,000 molecules on side B, a ratio of 2:1.
After a while we look again and find that there now are 1750 molecules on side A and 1250 molecules on side B.
A new ratio is been established (1750/1250 or 1.4 to 1), but the process continues until the ratio is approximately 1:1.
Flux (J) (molecules per unit time) = (C1 - C2) · (Area ·Permeability coefficient) / Thickness
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Plasma protein-bound drugs cannot permeate through aqueous pores
Charged drugs will be influenced by electric field potentials {membrane potentials, important in renal, trans-tubular transport}
II. Lipid diffusion
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Most important barrier for drug permeation due to:
Many lipid barriers separating body compartments
Lipid: aqueous drug partition coefficients described the ease with which a drug moves between aqueous and lipid environments
Ionization state of the drug is an important factor: charged drugs diffuse-through lipid environments with difficulty.
pH and the drug pKa, important in determining the ionization state, will influence significantly transport.
The pH and drug pKa determine the ratio of lipid-to aqueous-soluble forms for weak acids and bases as described by the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation.
Uncharged form: lipid-soluble
Charged form: aqueous-soluble, relatively lipid-insoluble (does not pass biological membranes easily)
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Lipid diffusion depends on adequate lipid solubility
Drug ionization (charged form) reduces a drug's ability to cross a lipid bilayer.
Drugs that are weak acids or bases
A weak acid is a neutral molecule that dissociates into an anion (negatively charged) and a proton (a hydrogen ion). For example:
C8H7O2COOH ⇄ C8H7O2COO- + H+
Neutral aspirin (C8H7O2COOH) in equilibrium with aspirin anion (C8H7O2COO- ) and a proton (H+ )
Weak acid: protonated form -- neutral, more lipid-soluble
Weak base: a neutral molecule that can form a cation (positively charged) by combining with a proton. Example:
C12H11CIN3NH3+ ⇄ C12H11CIN3NH2 + H+
Pyrimethamine cation (C12H11CIN3NH3+) in equilibrium with neutral pyrimethamine (C12H11CIN3NH2) and a proton (H+ )
Weak base: protonated form which is charged and therefore less lipid-soluble.
Examples:
Weak acids |
pKa |
Weak bases |
pKa |
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7.1 |
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8.5 |
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8.1 |
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9.6 |
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9.5 |
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4.6 |
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3.5 |
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7.9 |
III. Special Carriers
Peptides, amino acids, glucose are examples of molecules then enter cells through special carrier mechanisms.
Carriers:
Active transport describes an energy requiring process which is saturable, meaning that transport is probably against the concentration gradient and involves a finite number of carriers, hence the process must be saturable when all carrier sites are filled.
Facilitated diffusion, while not requiring "energy" is also saturable (limited number of carrier sites)
Saturable (unlike passive diffusion) because of limited number of carrier sites--once those sites are filled, transport rates cannot be increased.
A property of carrier systems is that the process is subject to inhibition by other small molecules.
IV. Endocytosis and exocytosis:
Entry into cells by very large substances (e.g., iron vitamin B12 , complexed with its binding protein moves across intestinal wall into the blood.
Neurotransmitter system examples for exocytosis:
Following neuronal electrical activation of nerve endings, two steps may be initiated:
Storage vesicles containing neurotransmitter fuse with cell membranes followed by
Release or diffusion of contents into the extracellular region.
Summary
Figure Developed by Dr. Steve Downing, University of Minnesota |
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