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Several drug-metabolizing enzymes are known to control androgen homeostasis in humans. UDP-glucuronosyltransferases convert androgens to glucuronide conjugates in the liver and intestine, which enables subsequent elimination of these conjugated androgens via urine. The most important androgen is testosterone, while others are the testosterone metabolites androsterone and etiocholanolone, and the testosterone precursor dehydroepiandrosterone. Epitestosterone is another endogenous androgen, which is included as a crucial marker in urine doping tests. Since glucuronide conjugates are hydrophilic, efflux transporters mediate their excretion from tissues. In this study, we employed the membrane vesicle assay to identify the efflux transporters for glucuronides of androsterone, dehydroepiandrosterone, epitestosterone, etiocholanolone and testosterone. The human hepatic and intestinal transporters MRP2 (ABCC2), MRP3 (ABCC3), MRP4 (ABCC4), BCRP (ABCG2) and MDR1 (ABCB1) were studied in vitro. Of these transporters, only MRP2 and MRP3 transported the androgen glucuronides investigated. In kinetic analyses, MRP3 transported glucuronides of androsterone, epitestosterone and etiocholanolone at low K m values, between 0.4 and 4 μM, while the K m values for glucuronides of testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone were 14 and 51 μM, respectively. MRP2 transported the glucuronides at lower affinity, as indicated by K m values over 100 μM. Interestingly, the MRP2-mediated transport of androsterone and epitestosterone glucuronides was best described by sigmoidal kinetics. The inability of BCRP to transport any of the androgen glucuronides investigated is drastically different from its highly active transport of several estrogen conjugates. Our results explain the transporter-mediated disposition of androgen glucuronides in humans, and shed light on differences between the human efflux transporters MRP2, MRP3, MRP4, BCRP and MDR1., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Estrone, estradiol and estriol are endogenous human estrogens that are rapidly conjugated with glucuronic acid in both intestinal and hepatic epithelial cells. The resulting glucuronides, estrone-3-glucuronide (E 1 -G), estradiol-3- and 17-glucuronides (E 2 -3G and E 2 -17G), as well as estriol-3- and 16-glucuronides (E 3 -3G and E 3 -16G) are found in human plasma and urine. Unlike E 2 -17G, the efflux transport of other estrogen glucuronides by human transporters has not yet been investigated comprehensively. We have studied the transport of E 1 -G, E 2 -3G, E 3 -3G, E 3 -16G and estrone-3-sulfate (E 1 -S), another important estrogen conjugate, using the vesicular transport assay with recombinant human MRP2, MRP3, MRP4, MDR1 and BCRP that were expressed in insect cells. The transport screening assays revealed that whereas E 1 -S was a good and specific substrate for BCRP, the less transporter-specific conjugates, E 1 -G and E 2 -3G, were still transported by BCRP at 10-fold higher rates than E 1 -S. BCRP also transported E 3 -16G at higher rates than the studied MRPs, while it transported E 3 -3G at lower rates than MRP3. MRP2 exhibited lower or equal transport rates of E 1 -G, E 2 -3G, E 3 -3G and E 3 -16G in comparison to MRP3 and BCRP in the screening assays, mainly due to its high K m values, between 180 and 790 μM. MRP3 transported all the tested glucuronides at rather similar rates, at K m values below 20 μM, but lower V max values than other transporters. In the case of E 3 -3G, MRP3 was the most active transporter in the screening assay. MRP4 transported only E 3 -16G at considerable rates, while none of the tested estrogen conjugates was transported by MDR1 at higher rates than control vesicles. These new results, in combination with previously reported in vivo human data, stimulate our understanding on the substrate specificity and role of efflux transporters in disposition of estrogen glucuronides in humans., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Xenobiotic and endobiotic glucuronides, which are generated in hepatic and intestinal epithelial cells, are excreted via efflux transporters. Multidrug resistance proteins 2-4 (MRP2-MRP4) and the breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) are efflux transporters that are expressed in these polarized cells, on either the basolateral or apical membranes. Their localization, along with expression levels, affects the glucuronide excretion pathways. We have studied the transport of three planar cyclic glucuronides and glucuronides of the two propranolol enantiomers, by the vesicular transport assay, using vesicles from baculovirus-infected insect cells expressing human MRP2, MRP3, MRP4, or BCRP. The transport of estradiol-17β-glucuronide by recombinant MRP2-4 and BCRP, as demonstrated by kinetic values, were within the ranges previously reported. Our results revealed high transport rates and apparent affinity of MRP4 toward the glucuronides of 4-methylumbelliferone, 1-naphthol, and 1-hydroxypyrene (K m values of 168, 13, and 3 μM, respectively) in comparison to MRP3 (K m values of 278, 98, and 8 μM, respectively). MRP3 exhibited lower rates, but stereoselective transport of propranolol glucuronides, with higher affinity toward the R-enantiomer than the S-enantiomer (K m values 154 vs 434 μM). The glucuronide of propranolol R-enantiomer was not significantly transported by either MRP2, MRP4, or BCRP. Of the tested small glucuronides in this study, BCRP transported only 1-hydroxypyrene glucuronide, at very high rates and high apparent affinity (V max and K m values of 4400 pmol/mg/min and 11 μM). The transport activity of MRP2 with all of the studied small glucuronides was relatively very low, even though it transported the reference compound, estradiol-17β-glucuronide, at a high rate (V max = 3500 pmol/mg/min). Our results provide new information, at the molecular level, of efflux transport of the tested glucuronides, which could explain their disposition in vivo, as well as provide new tools for in vitro studies of MRP3, MRP4, and BCRP.

The glucuronidation of estrone and 16α-hydroxyestrone by recombinant human UDP-glucuronosyltransferase enzymes (UGTs) of subfamilies 1A, 2A and 2B was studied. Microsomes from human liver and small intestine were also tested for the glucuronidation of these two estrogens. The results revealed that UGT1A10 is by far the most active enzyme in estrone glucuronidation. UGT1A10 also exhibited high rate of 16α-hydroxyestrone conjugation at the 3-OH, whereas UGT2B7 catalyzed its glucuronidation at high rates at the 16-OH. Human liver microsomes exhibited high rates of 16α-hydroxyestrone-16-glucuronide formation, but very low formation rates of either 16α-hydroxyestrone-3-glucuronide or estrone glucuronide. On the other hand, human intestine microsomes catalyzed the formation of all these 3 different glucuronides at high rates. Kinetic analyses revealed very low Km value for 16α-hydroxyestrone glucuronidation by UGT2B7, below 4 μM, suggesting higher affinity than commonly found among UGTs and their substrates. In further studies with UGT1A10, mutant F93G exhibited increased glucuronidation rates of 16α-hydroxyestrone, but not estrone, whereas mutations in F90 did not reveal any activity with either estrogen. Taken together, the results of this study significantly expand our understanding on the metabolism of estrogens and their interactions with the human UGTs., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)