In vivo screening of glutathione related detoxification products in the early state of drug development.

Glutathione (GSH) adducts and consecutive degradation products thereof are indications of reactive intermediates during drug metabolism. As demonstrated with the analgesic SX-PP 16 (4-amino-3,5-dibromacetanilide), however, interactions of a drug with GSH can be detected by labelling the GSH-stores with labelled cysteine, and consecutive administration of the unlabelled drug even at therapeutic doses. The GSH-adducts are sensitively and specifically traced by HPLC, applying column-switching and a combination of diode-array- and radioactivity detection. This approach seems to be much more sensitive than a classical GSH-depletion study. The structure of the main metabolite of SX-PP 16 (46% of urinary excretion) was elucidated as 3-bromo-4-amino-5-mercapturyl-acetanilid.