Metabolomics in Drug Metabolism, Drug-Drug Interactions, and Drug Toxicity

A special issue of Metabolites (ISSN 2218-1989). This special issue belongs to the section "Pharmacology and Drug Metabolism".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2025 | Viewed by 904

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Translational Medicine, Novartis Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Interests: drug metabolism; drug toxicity; ADME; pharmacokinetics; new modalities; MS-based metabolomics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Issues related to drug safety remain a major bottleneck in drug discovery and development. Recent technological advancements in metabolomics have enabled researchers to measure a large number of compounds in large sets of samples, as well as in single cells. These new advancements have helped us to gain insights into the mechanisms of drug toxicity, translatability to humans, prediction of safety events, mitigation of side effects, and development of safety biomarkers. Metabolomics applied to drug metabolism, drug–endobiotic interactions, and drug–drug (food) interactions offers an ideal opportunity to study the toxicological effects of drugs.

This Special Issue is devoted to metabolomics in drug metabolism, drug–drug (food) interactions, and drug toxicity. The topics that will be covered include studies on the metabolomic analyses of the fate of drugs and host responses to drugs (including new modalities such as peptides, antibody–drug conjugates, protein therapeutics, and oligonucleotide therapeutics), as well as endogenous probes for drug–drug (food) interactions. Additional topics include metabolomic analyses of studying the mechanism, prediction, and safety biomarkers of drug toxicity. Other topics with a similar focus will also be considered.

Dr. Pengcheng Wang
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • metabolomics
  • drug/xenobiotic metabolism
  • drug–drug interactions
  • drug toxicity
  • ADME
  • new modalities peptides
  • antibody-drug conjugates
  • protein therapeutics
  • oligonucleotide therapeutics

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 1777 KiB  
Article
Comparison of Pyrazinamide with Isoniazid for Their Effects on the Heme Biosynthetic Pathway in Mouse Liver
by Fu-Ying Qin, Ruizhi Gu, Jiaojiao Zhang, Jaden Leigh Weiss, Jie Lu, Qing Ma and Xiaochao Ma
Metabolites 2025, 15(6), 355; https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo15060355 - 28 May 2025
Viewed by 310
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Isoniazid (INH) and pyrazinamide (PZA) are first-line drugs used to treat tuberculosis (TB), but their use is generally contraindicated in patients with porphyria, a group of metabolic disorders caused by defects in the heme biosynthetic pathway. To investigate the basis for these [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Isoniazid (INH) and pyrazinamide (PZA) are first-line drugs used to treat tuberculosis (TB), but their use is generally contraindicated in patients with porphyria, a group of metabolic disorders caused by defects in the heme biosynthetic pathway. To investigate the basis for these contraindications, we compared the effects of INH and PZA on the heme biosynthetic pathway in mouse liver. Method: We investigated the hepatic expression and activity of the key enzymes involved in the heme biosynthetic pathway, including aminolevulinic acid synthase 1 (Alas1) and ferrochelatase (Fech). Additionally, we employed a metabolomic approach to analyze liver and fecal samples from the mice treated with INH or PZA. Result: We found that INH, but not PZA, significantly upregulated the expression and activity of Alas1, the rate-limiting enzyme in heme biosynthesis, while concurrently downregulating Fech, which converts protoporphyrin IX (PPIX) to heme. These changes resulted in the accumulation of the toxic intermediate aminolevulinic acid (ALA) and PPIX in the liver of INH-treated mice. In contrast, PZA had no measurable effect on the expression or function of Alas1 or Fech. Conclusions: These findings provide mechanistic insight into INH-induced porphyria exacerbation and suggest that PZA may not carry the same risk, challenging its current contraindication. Full article
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