Renal Transport of Drugs: An Overview of Methodology with Application to Cimetidine

The development of new methods to study transport processes in renal epithelia has greatly enhanced our knowledge of the mechanisms involved in the transport of a number of endogenous compounds. More recently, these methods have been applied to study mechanisms of specific drug transport. This article is intended to provide an overview of the various methods used to study renal elimination of compounds. References to more detailed reviews of the individual methods are provided. Studies of the renal transport of cimetidine, a histamine H₂-receptor antagonist, are presented to illustrate the application of these methods to the study of specific drugs. Methods such as clearance techniques and the Sperber chicken preparation used to study renal elimination of compounds in whole animals are briefly described. Techniques to identify the site of renal transport including stop flow, isolated perfused tubules, and micropuncture methods are discussed and references to more technical reviews are cited. The more recently developed methods of isolated membrane vesicles for studying transport across the individual polar membranes of the proximal tubule are discussed along with the relevant studies of the use of these membranes in elucidating the mechanisms involved in the renal transport of cimetidine. Finally, the use of cultured renal epithelial cell lines in studying renal transport is described. Knowledge of drug transport mechanisms in the kidney is important both in drug targeting to the kidney and in understanding the pharmacokinetics of renally eliminated drugs. As exemplified by the studies with cimetidine, only by combining the data from experiments using diverse methodology can the mechanisms involved in the renal excretion of compounds be delineated. With the use of existing methods and the development of new technologies, many of the questions related to drug transport mechanisms can be addressed.