An in-vitro study of chloroquine transport in the rat submaxillary gland

The uptake and efflux of chloroquine by the rat submaxillary gland in-vitro were studied under various incubation conditions. Variations in the extracellular pH significantly affected both the uptake and efflux of the drug. Increasing chloroquine concentration significantly decreased the uptake. Uptake was also decreased significantly (P less than 0.05) when compared with control conditions (pH 7.40, 37.5 degrees C, O2 aeration, 6 x 10(-6) M chloroquine) by the following experimental variations: aeration of the incubation medium with N2 instead of O2; decrease of bath temperature from 37.5 to 4 degrees C; addition of metabolic inhibitors, cyanide (10(-3) M), iodoacetic acid (10(-3) M) and o-nitrophenol (10(-3) M). Cimetidine (10(-3) M), a known organic cationic inhibitor, had no significant effect on chloroquine uptake when compared with control values. These results show that the uptake of chloroquine by the rat submaxillary gland in-vitro is concentration-dependent and this is indicative of possible saturable binding sites for the drug in the gland. These results suggest that the transfer of chloroquine across the submaxillary gland may be mediated by an active transport process. On the other hand, it is possible that the apparent active transport process implicated in this study could be a consequence of chloroquine ion trapping in the acidic interior of lysosomes.