Catalytic assays for human cytochrome P450: an introduction

Cytochrome P450 (P450) is a superfamily of individual monooxygenase enzymes that metabolize structurally diverse xenochemicals, including many clinically useful drugs and foreign chemicals widespread in the environment. P450 substrates that can be used to selectively monitor individual P450 enzymes or P450 subfamilies have been identified through studies using P450 enzyme-selective inhibitory antibodies and chemical inhibitors in conjunction with experiments utilizing individual cDNA-expressed P450 enzymes. This chapter describes P450 form-selective substrates that can be used to monitor the activities of human P450 enzymes CYP1A, CYP1B1, CYP2A6, CYP2B6, CYP2C8, CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP2D6, CYP2E1, CYP3A, CYP4A11, and CYP7A1. Cautions that need to be exercised when using these substrates to probe for individual P450 activities in human liver and other tissues are discussed.