Hepatitis C virus NS3 protease inhibitors: Large, flexible molecules of peptide origin show satisfactory permeability across Caco-2 cells

The purpose of this study was to investigate the intestinal absorption of tripeptide-based compounds intended for treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The intestinal permeability of 11 HCV NS3 protease inhibitors (Mw 687-841, C log D_{pH 7.4} 1.2-7.3 and 10-13 hydrogen bond donors/acceptors) was measured using Caco-2 cells. Each compound was investigated in the apical to basolateral (a-b) and basolateral to apical (b-a) direction at pH 7.4. For compounds displaying efflux the experiment was repeated in the presence of 1 μM GF120918 to investigate possible involvement of P-glycoprotein (Pgp; ABCB1). All compounds displayed intermediate to high permeability. Seven of them showed extensive efflux, with 31-114-fold higher permeability in the b-a direction than the a-b direction. Addition of the Pgp inhibitor GF120918 reduced the b-a transport rate for the effluxed compounds. However, for inhibitors with a C-terminal carboxylic acid and the acidic bioisosteres thereof the efflux was still significant. Hence, the negative charge resulted in efflux by other ABC-transporters than Pgp. From this study it can be concluded that small changes in the overall structure can lead to a large variation in permeability and efflux as shown by the inhibitors herein, properties that also may influence the resulting inhibition potency of the compounds when performing cell-based pharmacological assays.