Pharmacokinetics of nisoldipine. III. Biotransformation of nisoldipine in rat, dog, monkey, and man.

After intraduodenal administration of 14C-labelled (+/-) 3-isobutyl-5-methyl 1,4-dihydro-2,6-dimethyl-4-(2-nitrophenyl)-pyridine-3,5-dicarboxylate (nisoldipine, Bay k 5552) to rats approx. 68% of the dose was excreted in the bile in the first 6 h. In an isolated perfused rat liver model the excretion with the bile was 56% of the total dose within 3 h. The recovery of radioactivity from orally administered [14C] nisoldipine was approx. 32% (rat), 23% (dog), 73% (monkey) and 74% (man), resp., in the urine. The unchanged drug was neither detected in the urine nor in the bile, but nisoldipine was present in plasma of the rat 30 min after dosing and up to 24 h in man. The drug was extensively metabolized: 18 biotransformation products were identified by comparison with synthetic reference compounds using combined GC-MS, 1 NMR-spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, gas chromatography/radio-gas chromatography and two-dimensional thin layer chromatography, 6 of them being quantitatively important (about 80% of the radioactivity excreted in urine). The metabolites identified accounted for approx. 82% (rat: bile and urine), 19% (dog, due to the low renal excretion), 58% (monkey: urine) and 64% (man: urine) of the excreted dose, resp. The following biotransformation steps occurred: hydroxylation of the isobutyl moiety, dehydrogenation of the 1,4-dihydropyridine system, oxidative ester cleavage, hydroxylation of one of the methyl groups in 2- or 6-position and subsequent oxidation to the carboxylic acid, oxidation of one of the methyl groups of the isobutyl moiety to the carboxyl group reduction of the aromatic nitro group (minor biotransformation reaction) and glucuronidation as phase II reaction.