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Updated: May 22, 2026

Mass Spectrometry and Luminogenic-based Approaches to Characterize Phase I Metabolic Competency of In Vitro Cell Cultures
Published on: March 28, 2017
Study of drug metabolism by xanthine oxidase
Jing Zhao1, Xiaolin He1, Nana Yang2
1Laboratory of Biosensing Technology, School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China.
Abstract:
In this work, we report the studies of drug metabolism by xanthine oxidase (XOD) with electrochemical techniques. Firstly, a pair of stable, well-defined and quasi-reversible oxidation/reduction peaks is obtained with the formal potential at -413.1 mV (vs. SCE) after embedding XOD in salmon sperm DNA membrane on the surface of pyrolytic graphite electrode. Then, a new steady peak can be observed at -730 mV (vs. SCE) upon the addition of 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) to the electrochemical system, indicating the metabolism of 6-MP by XOD. Furthermore, the chronoamperometric response shows that the current of the catalytic peak located at -730 mV increases with addition of 6-MP in a concentration-dependent manner, and the increase of the chronoamperometric current can be inhibited by an XOD inhibitor, quercetin. Therefore, our results prove that XOD/DNA modified electrode can be efficiently used to study the metabolism of 6-MP, which may provide a convenient approach for in vitro studies on enzyme-catalyzed drug metabolism.
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