A PAMPA study of the permeability-enhancing effect of new ceramide analogues

There is a major need in drug discovery for quick, precise, and cost-effective high-throughput screening (HTS) systems in the early stages of drug research. The Parallel Artificial Membrane Permeability Assay (PAMPA) aims at predicting the passive membrane properties of drugs. Since 1998, model membranes have been developed to predict gastro-intestinal absorption or transport through the blood-brain barrier. This paper presents recent results in a project aiming to improve the prediction of transdermal penetration. Using the PAMPA system, we investigated the effect of four newly synthetized ceramide analogues (certramides) on the permeability of three model compounds (ciprofloxacin, nifedipine, and verapamil). The certramides differ in the length of one alkyl chain, while the other alkyl chain and the head group remained the same. A relationship between the membrane concentration of certramides (from 0 to 100%) and the permeability of compounds was found, and the results of different certramides were compared. The strongest effect on permeability was caused by the ceramide analogue CTR(C12-C16). The reproducibility of the experiments and the impact of presence or absence of organic solvents (dodecane and CHCl3) in the membrane were also investigated.