The shortcoming of using glibenclamide in exploratory clinical headache provocation studies

Preclinical and clinical studies implicate the vascular ATP-sensitive potassium (K_ATP) channel in the signaling cascades underlying headache and migraine. However, attempts to demonstrate that the K_ATP channel inhibitor glibenclamide would attenuate triggered headache in healthy volunteers have proven unsuccessful. It is questionable, however, whether target engagement was achieved in these clinical studies.

Literature data for human glibenclamide pharmacokinetics, plasma protein binding and functional IC₅₀ values were used to predict the K_ATP receptor occupancy (RO) levels obtained after glibenclamide dosing in the published exploratory clinical headache provocation studies. RO vs. time profiles of glibenclamide were simulated for the pancreatic K_ATP channel subtype Kir6.2/SUR1 and the vascular subtype Kir6.1/SUR2B.

At the clinical dose of 10 mg of glibenclamide used in the headache provocation studies, predicted maximal occupancy levels of up to 90% and up to 26% were found for Kir6.2/SUR1 and Kir6.1/SUR2B, respectively.

The findings of the present study indicate that effective Kir6.1/SUR2B target engagement was not achieved in the clinical headache provocation studies using glibenclamide. Therefore, development of novel selective Kir6.1/SUR2B inhibitors, with good bioavailability and low plasma protein binding, is required to reveal the potential of K_ATP channel inhibition in the treatment of migraine.