Electrochemical Study of Drug Metabolism

Oxidation is the main pathway of drug metabolism and cytochrome P-450 (CYP450) enzymes account for over 80% of drug oxidation. The chemical outcome of this first-pass hepatic oxidation is crucial information in drug development processes. Electrochemistry stands out as a widely adopted instrumental approach for simulating CYP450 oxidation. Numerous studies have demonstrated the capability of electrochemical methods to effectively replicate specific oxidative metabolism processes. This article highlights recent studies on the electrochemical oxidation of drugs and their trifold contribution to generating drug metabolites with subsequent analysis techniques. It also underlines the unexplored concept of electrocatalytic reactions for the study of drug metabolism.