Possible Role of P-Glycoprotein in Cyclosporine -Acitretin Drug Interaction

P-glycoprotein, an efflux transporter prevents intracellular accumulation of xenobiotics. Cyclosporine A and acitretin are used to treat psoriasis. The present research work aims to investigate the possible role of P-glycoprotein in Cyclosporine- Acitretin drug interaction due to evidence of both drugs having affinity for P-glycoprotein.The study has three different objective namely to assess apparent permeability coefficient of cyclosporine in presence of acitretin by non-everted sac technique, to study the intestinal permeation and absorption kinetics of cyclosporine in presence of acitretin by single pass intestinal perfusion (SPIP) technique and to study the influence of acitretin on oral bioavailability of cyclosporine in Wistar rats.The result of ex vivo, in situ and in vivo study showed that cyclosporine level increased in a time dependent manner. As the dose of acitretin increases the cyclosporine concentration in all three methods tend to increase and was statistically significant. The improvement in absorption of cyclosporine may be due to the inhibition of P-glycoprotein transporter in the intestine by acitretin. Thus acitretin may enhance the oral pharmacokinetics of cyclosporine. Hence this combination may require close monitoring for better therapeutic outcome. Our study confirmed the inhibitory role of acitretin on P-glycoprotein leading to increase concentration of cyclosporine.