Omarigliptin attenuates rotenone-induced Parkinson's disease in rats: Possible role of oxidative stress, endoplasmic reticulum stress and immune modulation.

The current study aimed to explore the potential neuroprotective effect of omarigliptin (OG), an antidiabetic drug that crosses the blood-brain barrier (BBB), in a Parkinson's disease (PD) rotenone-based rat-model. Results showed that OG attenuated motor impairment, histological aberrations, α-synuclein accumulation, and rescued the dopaminergic neurons in rotenone-administered rats. Furthermore, OG halted rotenone-induced oxidative stress; as shown by reduced lipid peroxidation, decline in the oxidative stress sensor (nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2) and its downstream heme oxygenase-1. In addition, OG abrogated neuroinflammation and apoptosis in rotenone-treated rats. Moreover, OG ameliorated endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in rotenone-administered rats; as evidenced by reduced levels of ER resident proteins such as glucose-regulated protein 78, C/EBP homologous protein and apoptotic caspase-12. In conclusion, this study implies repurposing of OG, as a novel neuroprotective agent due to its antioxidant properties, its effects on ER stress in addition to its anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic activities.

Investigation of Pharmacokinetic Parameters of Trelagliptin in Egyptian Volunteers Using Sensitive LC-MS/MS: A Comparative Study with a Japanese Population.

Trelagliptin (TLN) is a novel once-weekly antidiabetic drug that enhanced the patient compliance in type 2 diabetes. TLN analysis and bioanalysis literature review showed many methods for TLN assay either in dosage form or as biological fluids (pharmacokinetic parameters), but all those methods did not consider the full details dealing with biological assay of TLN. Studies that included information about pharmacokinetic parameters did not mention the used analytical procedures for those determinations and parameters. Although some LC-MS/MS and UPLC-UV methods were reported for TLN bioassay in rats' plasma, they used direct precipitation techniques, and the current described procedure showed lower LLOQ than all the reported methods in spite of that working on human plasma is more complicated than on rats' plasma. In this study, LC-MS/MS bioanalysis of TLN in human plasma (4-1000 nM) was employed successfully with LLOQ of 4 nM which is lower than all reported methods in rats' plasma followed by a preliminary pharmacokinetic study. Alogliptin was used as internal standard (IS) because of its structure similarity to TLN. Pharmacokinetic parameters of TLN were investigated in Egyptian volunteers, and they had been compared to Japanese. Liquid-liquid extraction showed more sensitive results than direct precipitation. The proposed method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study conducted on Egyptian volunteers. No dose modification is required upon comparing the pharmacokinetic parameters of the current study and previous studies on non-Egyptian volunteers.

Repurposing of Omarigliptin as a Neuroprotective Agent Based on Docking with A2A Adenosine and AChE Receptors, Brain GLP-1 Response and Its Brain/Plasma Concentration Ratio after 28 Days Multiple Doses in Rats Using LC-MS/MS.

The authors in the current work suggested the potential repurposing of omarigliptin (OMR) for neurodegenerative diseases based on three new findings that support the preliminary finding of crossing BBB after a single dose study in the literature. The first finding is the positive results of the docking study with the crystal structures of A2A adenosine (A2AAR) and acetylcholine esterase (AChE) receptors. A2AAR is a member of non-dopaminergic GPCR superfamily receptor proteins and has essential role in regulation of glutamate and dopamine release in Parkinson's disease while AChE plays a major role in Alzheimer's disease as the primary enzyme responsible for the hydrolytic metabolism of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine into choline and acetate. Docking showed that OMR perfectly fits into A2AAR binding pocket forming a distinctive hydrogen bond with Threonine 256. Besides other non-polar interactions inside the pocket suggesting the future of the marketed anti-diabetic drug (that cross BBB) as a potential antiparkinsonian agent while OMR showed perfect fit inside AChE receptor binding site smoothly because of its optimum length and the two fluorine atoms that enables quite lean fitting. Moreover, a computational comparative study of OMR docking, other 12 DPP-4 inhibitors and 11 SGLT-2 inhibitors was carried out. Secondly, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) concentration in rats' brain tissue was determined by the authors using sandwich GLP-1 ELISA kit bio-analysis to ensure the effect of OMR after the multiple doses' study. Brain GLP-1 concentration was elevated by 1.9-fold following oral multiple doses of OMR (5 mg/kg/day, p.o. for 28 days) as compared to the control group. The third finding is the enhanced BBB crossing of OMR after 28 days of multiple doses that had been studied using LC-MS/MS method with enhanced liquid-liquid extraction. A modified LC-MS/MS method was established for bioassay of OMR in rats' plasma (10-3100 ng/mL) and rats' brain tissue (15-2900 ng/mL) using liquid-liquid extraction. Alogliptin (ALP) was chosen as an internal standard (IS) due to its LogP value of 1.1, which is very close to the LogP of OMR. Extraction of OMR from samples of both rats' plasma and rats' brain tissue was effectively achieved with ethyl acetate as the extracting solvent after adding 1N sodium carbonate to enhance the drug migration, while choosing acetonitrile to be the diluent solvent for the IS to effectively decrease any emulsion between the layers in the stated method of extraction. Validation results were all pleasing including good stability studies with bias of value below 20%. Concentration of OMR in rats' plasma were determined after 2 h of the latest dose from 28 days multiple doses, p.o, 5 mg/kg/day. It was found to be 1295.66 ± 684.63 ng/mL estimated from the bio-analysis regression equation. OMR passed through the BBB following oral administration and exhibited concentration of 543.56 ± 344.15 ng/g in brain tissue, taking in consideration the dilution factor of 10. The brain/plasma concentration ratio of 0.42 (543.56/1295.66) was used to illustrate the penetration power through the BBB after the multiple doses for 28 days. Results showed that OMR passed through the BBB more effectively in the multiple dose study as compared to the previously published single dose study by the authors. Thus, the present study suggests potential repositioning of OMR as antiparkinsonian agent that will be of interest for researchers interested in neurodegenerative diseases.

Development of Advanced Chemometric-Assisted Spectrophotometric Methods for the Determination of Cromolyn Sodium and Its Alkaline Degradation Products.

Advanced and sensitive spectrophotometric and chemometric analytical methods were successfully established for the stability-indicating assay of cromolyn sodium (CS) and its alkaline degradation products (Deg1 and Deg2). Spectrophotometric mean centering ratio spectra method (MCR) and chemometric methods, including principal component regression (PCR) and partial least square (PLS-2) methods, were applied. Peak amplitudes after MCR at 367.8 nm, 373.8 nm and 310.6 nm were used within linear concentration ranges of 2-40 µg mL-1, 5-40 µg mL-1 and 10-100 µg mL-1 for CS, Deg1 and Deg2, respectively. For PCR and PLS-2 models, a calibration set of eighteen mixtures and a validation set of seven mixtures were built for the simultaneous determination of CS, Deg1 and Deg2 in the ranges of 5-13 µg mL-1, 8-16 µg mL-1, and 10-30 µg mL-1, respectively. The authors emphasize the importance of a stability-indicating strategy for the investigation of pharmaceutical products.

Repositioning of Omarigliptin as a once-weekly intranasal Anti-parkinsonian Agent.

Drug repositioning is a revolution breakthrough of drug discovery that presents outstanding privilege with already safer agents by scanning the existing candidates as therapeutic switching or repurposing for marketed drugs. Sitagliptin, vildagliptin, saxagliptin & linagliptin showed antioxidant and neurorestorative effects in previous studies linked to DPP-4 inhibition. Literature showed that gliptins did not cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) while omarigliptin was the first gliptin that crossed it successfully in the present work. LC-MS/MS determination of once-weekly anti-diabetic DPP-4 inhibitors; omarigliptin & trelagliptin in plasma and brain tissue was employed after 2 h of oral administration to rats. The brain/plasma concentration ratio was used to deduce the penetration power through the BBB. Results showed that only omarigliptin crossed the BBB due to its low molecular weight & lipophilic properties suggesting its repositioning as antiparkinsonian agent. The results of BBB crossing will be of interest for researchers interested in Parkinson's disease. A novel intranasal formulation was developed using sodium lauryl sulphate surfactant to solubilize the lipophilic omarigliptin with penetration enhancing & antimicrobial properties. Intranasal administration showed enhanced brain/plasma ratio by 3.3 folds compared to the oral group accompanied with 2.6 folds increase in brain glucagon-like peptide-1 concentration compared to the control group.

Liquid chromatographic and spectrofluorimetric assays of empagliflozin: Applied to degradation kinetic study and content uniformity testing.

Stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and spectrofluorimetric methods were developed for determination of empagliflozin (EGF). EGF was subjected to oxidation, wet heat, photo-degradation, acid hydrolysis and alkali hydrolysis. The alkaline degradation pathway was subjected to a kinetics study as the major product obtained after stress conditions. Arrhenius plots were constructed and the activation energies of the degradation process were calculated. HPLC was used for the kinetic study as it enabled simultaneous determination of EGF and the degradation product while the spectrofluorimetric assay was applied to content uniformity testing due to its higher sensitivity and lower limit of detection (LOD). Isocratic chromatographic elution was attained for HPLC on a Intersil® C18 column (150 mm × 4 mm, 5 µm), using a mobile phase of acetonitrile-potassium dihydrogen phosphate buffer pH 4, (50:50, v/v) at a flow rate of 1 ml/min with ultraviolet (UV) detection at 225 nm. The relative fluorescence intensity was recorded by spectrofluorimeter applying synchronous mode using ∆λ = 70 nm at 297.6 nm. Linearity ranges were found to be 5-50 µg/ml and 50-1000 ng/ml for HPLC and spectrofluorimetric methods, respectively.

Enhanced LC-MS/MS analysis of alogliptin and pioglitazone in human plasma: Applied to a preliminary pharmacokinetic study.

A new fast LC-MS/MS method was developed for determination of alogliptin and pioglitazone in human plasma. Linearity ranges of 10-400ngmL-1 for alogliptin and 25-2000ngmL-1 for pioglitazone, were found to be suitable for their bioanalysis covering the Cmin and Cmax values of the drugs. Direct precipitation technique was used for simultaneous extraction of the drugs successfully from human plasma samples. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a BEH C18 column (50mm×2.1mm, 1.7µm) with 0.1% aqueous formic acid: acetonitrile (40:60, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.3mLmin-1. The validated method was applied to a preliminary pharmacokinetic study on human volunteers. Monitoring the transition pairs of m/z 340.18 to 116.08 for alogliptin and m/z 356.99 to 133.92 for pioglitazone, using triple quadrupole mass spectrometer with multiple reaction monitoring, was achieved in the positive mode. The validated method is accurate and suitable for further clinical applications and possible bioequivalence studies.

Comparative Study Between Multivariate and Univariate Analysis of Two Antidiabetic Combinations.

New multivariate and univariate methods were developed for the analysis of two novel gliptin combinations by manipulating the zero-order and ratio spectra of empagliflozin and linagliptin in combination, with application on Glyxambi® tablets, and of alogliptin and pioglitazone in combination, with application on Oseni® tablets. Linearity ranges for chemometric approaches using principal component regression and partial least-squares were found to be 2-10, 2.5-12.5, 5-15, and 5-25 µg/mL for empagliflozin, linagliptin, alogliptin, and pioglitazone, respectively, whereas the respective linearity ranges for the spectrophotometric approaches were found to be 5-15, 2-12, 5-15, and 5-15 µg/mL. The proposed spectrophotometric methods included ratio subtraction coupled with extended ratio subtraction, spectrum subtraction coupled with constant multiplication, and mean centering. Acceptable LOD and LOQ values were obtained by all methods. Statistical analysis showed no significant difference between multivariate and univariate methods in comparison with the reference methods. The optimized methods provide fast and economic determination of the recently approved antidiabetic combinations without the complex instrumentation or time-consuming mobile phase preparations that were used in the chromatographic techniques reported in the literature.

Compatible validated spectrofluorimetric and spectrophotometric methods for determination of vildagliptin and saxagliptin by factorial design experiments.

Simple, selective and reproducible spectrofluorimetric and spectrophotometric methods have been developed for the determination of vildagliptin and saxagliptin in bulk and their pharmaceutical dosage forms. The first proposed spectrofluorimetric method is based on the dansylation reaction of the amino group of vildagliptin with dansyl chloride to form a highly fluorescent product. The formed product was measured spectrofluorimetrically at 455 nm after excitation at 345 nm. Beer's law was obeyed in a concentration range of 100-600 µg ml(-1). The second proposed spectrophotometric method is based on the charge transfer complex of saxagliptin with tetrachloro-1,4-benzoquinone (p-chloranil). The formed charge transfer complex was measured spectrophotometrically at 530 nm. Beer's law was obeyed in a concentration range of 100-850 µg ml(-1). The third proposed spectrophotometric method is based on the condensation reaction of the primary amino group of saxagliptin with formaldehyde and acetyl acetone to form a yellow colored product known as Hantzsch reaction, measured at 342.5 nm. Beer's law was obeyed in a concentration range of 50-300 µg ml(-1). All the variables were studied to optimize the reactions' conditions using factorial design. The developed methods were validated and proved to be specific and accurate for quality control of vildagliptin and saxagliptin in their pharmaceutical dosage forms.

Stability-indicating liquid chromatographic method for determination of saxagliptin and structure elucidation of the major degradation products using LC-MS.

A new, simple, selective, reproducible and sensitive stability-indicating liquid chromatographic method was developed and subsequently validated for the determination of saxagliptin (SXG). SXG was subjected to oxidation, thermal, acid hydrolysis, alkali hydrolysis and photodegradation according to ICH guidelines. The major degradation products were separated from the pure drug and the proposed structures' elucidation was performed, using an LC-MS technique. Isocratic chromatographic elution was achieved on a Symmetry(®) C18 column (150 × 4.6 mm, 5 µm), using a mobile phase of potassium dihydrogen phosphate buffer (pH 4.6)-acetonitrile-methanol (40 : 30 : 30, v/v/v) at a flow rate of 1 mL min(-1) with UV detection at 208 nm. Linearity, accuracy and precision were found to be acceptable over the concentration range of 25-400 µg mL(-1). All the results were statistically compared with the reference method, using one-way analysis of variance. The developed method was validated and proved to be specific and accurate for quality control of SXG in pharmaceutical dosage form.

Validation of different spectrophotometric methods for determination of vildagliptin and metformin in binary mixture.

New, simple, specific, accurate, precise and reproducible spectrophotometric methods have been developed and subsequently validated for determination of vildagliptin (VLG) and metformin (MET) in binary mixture. Zero order spectrophotometric method was the first method used for determination of MET in the range of 2-12 µg mL(-1) by measuring the absorbance at 237.6 nm. The second method was derivative spectrophotometric technique; utilized for determination of MET at 247.4 nm, in the range of 1-12 µg mL(-1). Derivative ratio spectrophotometric method was the third technique; used for determination of VLG in the range of 4-24 µg mL(-1) at 265.8 nm. Fourth and fifth methods adopted for determination of VLG in the range of 4-24 µg mL(-1); were ratio subtraction and mean centering spectrophotometric methods, respectively. All the results were statistically compared with the reported methods, using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The developed methods were satisfactorily applied to analysis of the investigated drugs and proved to be specific and accurate for quality control of them in pharmaceutical dosage forms.