Human Intestinal Raf Kinase Inhibitor Protein (RKIP) Catalyzes Prasugrel as a Bioactivation Hydrolase

Prasugrel is a thienopyridine antiplatelet prodrug that undergoes rapid hydrolysis in vivo to a thiolactone metabolite by human carboxylesterase-2 (hCE2) during gastrointestinal absorption. The thiolactone metabolite is further converted to a pharmacologically active metabolite by cytochrome P450 isoforms. The aim of the current study was to elucidate hydrolases other than hCE2 involved in the bioactivation step of prasugrel in human intestine. Using size-exclusion column chromatography of a human small intestinal S9 fraction, another peak besides the hCE2 peak was observed to have prasugrel hydrolyzing activity, and this protein was found to have a molecular weight of about 20 kDa. This prasugrel hydrolyzing protein was successfully purified from a monkey small intestinal cytosolic fraction by successive four-step column chromatography and identified as Raf-1 kinase inhibitor protein (RKIP) by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Second, we evaluated the enzymatic kinetic parameters for prasugrel hydrolysis using recombinant human RKIP and hCE2 and estimated the contributions of these two hydrolyzing enzymes to the prasugrel hydrolysis reaction in human intestine, which were approximately 40% for hRKIP and 60% for hCE2. Moreover, prasugrel hydrolysis was inhibited by anti-hRKIP antibody and carboxylesterase-specific chemical inhibitor (bis p-nitrophenyl phosphate) by 30% and 60%, respectively. In conclusion, another protein capable of hydrolyzing prasugrel to its thiolactone metabolite was identified as RKIP, and this protein may play a significant role with hCE2 in prasugrel bioactivation in human intestine. RKIP is known to have diverse functions in many intracellular signaling cascades, but this is the first report describing RKIP as a hydrolase involved in drug metabolism.