A previous study in our lab found that the hydrolysis of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) under typical acidities found in the stomach only reaches ~20% degradation after 19 hours. These results are in direct contrast to earlier work in the literature where researchers found that aspirin blood plasma levels were essentially zero after only 90 minutes. These opposing results seem to suggest that there is something other than the strong acid conditions of the stomach catalyzing the hydrolysis reaction <i>in vivo</i>. The research described here focuses on developing a method to determine the rate of aspirin hydrolysis in the presence of specific digestive enzymes. We will explore the action of four digestive enzymes (pepsin, trypsin, chymotrypsin, and liver esterase) on aspirin to better understand where aspirin hydrolysis occurs most readily in a living system. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) will be used to generate kinetic data for these studies and process optimization will be performed to ensure that enzyme specificity is strictly adhered to throughout the hydrolysis reaction. These pharmacokinetic experiments will be used to illustrate how aspirin hydrolyzes into salicylic acid at varying rates due to robust changes in the environment, specifically in the presence of the four enzymes of interest, and will illustrate an overall model for how a synthesized drug reacts within the body.

Pharmacokinetic studies of aspirin degradation in the presence of enzymes

255th National Meeting (2018)

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