Development of an in vitro system to study the interactions of aerosolized drugs with pulmonary mucus

Alqahtani, Safar; Roberts, Clive J.; Stolnik, Snjezana; Bosquillon, Cynthia

Abstract

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Mucus is the first biological component inhaled drugs encounter on their journey towards their pharmacological target in the upper airways. Yet, how mucus may influence drug disposition and efficacy in the lungs has been essentially overlooked. In this study, a simple in vitro system was developed to investigate the factors promoting drug interactions with airway mucus in physiologically relevant conditions. Thin layers of porcine tracheal mucus were prepared in Transwell® inserts and initially, the diffusion of various fluorescent dyes across those layers was monitored over time. A deposition system featuring a MicroSprayer® aerosolizer was optimized to reproducibly deliver liquid aerosols to multiple air-facing layers and then exploited to compare the impact of airway mucus on the transport of inhaled bronchodilators. Both the dyes and drugs tested were distinctly hindered by mucus with high logP compounds being the most affected. The diffusion rate of the bronchodilators across the layers was in the order: ipratropium ≈ glycopyronnium > formoterol > salbutamol > indacaterol, suggesting hydrophobicity plays an important role in their binding to mucus but is not the unique parameter involved. Testing of larger series of compounds would nevertheless be necessary to better understand the interactions of inhaled drugs with airway mucus.

Citation

Alqahtani, S., Roberts, C. J., Stolnik, S., & Bosquillon, C. (2020). Development of an in vitro system to study the interactions of aerosolized drugs with pulmonary mucus. Pharmaceutics, 12(2), Article 145. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics12020145

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 8, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Feb 11, 2020
• Publication Date: Feb 11, 2020
• Deposit Date: Feb 18, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 18, 2020
• Journal: Pharmaceutics
• Electronic ISSN: 1999-4923
• Publisher: MDPI
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 145
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics12020145
• Keywords: Pharmaceutical Science
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3986669
• Publisher URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4923/12/2/145