Discovering plausible mechanistic details of hepatic drug interactions

We sought a single set of mechanisms that could provide a quantitative explanation of three pairs of published time series data: perfusate concentration of digoxin and its metabolite in perfusates of isolated perfused rat livers 1) in the absence of any predose and with a predose of either 2) the uptake inhibitor rifampicin or 3) the efflux inhibitor quinidine. We used the synthetic modeling and simulation method because it provides a means of developing a scientific, experimental approach to unraveling and understanding some of the complexities of drug-drug interactions. We plugged together validated, quasi-autonomous software components to form abstract but mechanistically realistic analogs of livers undergoing perfusion [recirculating in silico livers (RISLs)], into which we could add objects representing each of the above three drugs, alone or in combination. Each RISL was a hypothesis about plausible mechanisms responsible for the referent time series data. Simulations tested each hypothesis. We used similarity measures (SMs) to compare results to the six sets of referent data. From many candidates, we identified an RISL having time-invariant mechanisms that achieved a weak SM (SM-1) but failed to achieve a stronger SM. Replacing four time-invariant with time-variant mechanisms along with addition of new enzyme and transporter components achieved the most stringent SM: simulated digoxin and metabolite perfusate levels were experimentally indistinguishable from the referent data for all three treatments. The mechanisms simulated unanticipated loss of hepatic viability during the original wet-lab experiments: erosion of hepatic accessibility and of enzyme and transporter activities.