ZeTox – Toxicology Services

Bioavailability Assay

The disposition of a drug within an organism is a key element to understand and contextualize the presence/absence of toxic effects. Absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion determine the bioavailability of a compound and depend particularly on its physicochemical properties.

Our bioavailability assay is a quantitative bioanalytics service addressed to analyzing the amount of drug absorbed and distributed in the embryos. Applicable also to specific tissues and the production and excretion of metabolites.

Advantages

Deep knowledge on drug compartmentalization

Applicable to a wide range of compounds.

Potential identification of metabolites.

Method description

Incubation of zebrafish embryos with the testing compound, proceeding from any toxicity/efficacy assay. After incubation, whole embryos or specific tissue sections are lyophilized for Mass Spectrometry or Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) analysis. The drug content in embryos is calculated by taking into account the initial amount of drug and the remaining amount in the exposure medium.

Readouts

• The initial drug content in the exposure medium. 
• The drug content in whole embryos or specific tissues.
• The drug content remaining in the exposure medium.
• Metabolite content (optional)

References

1. Parng C. In vivo zebrafish assays for toxicity testing. Curr Opin Drug Discov Devel. 2005 Jan;8(1):100-6.
2. Yoganantharjah and Gibert. The Use of the Zebrafish Model to Aid in Drug Discovery and Target Validation. Curr Top Med Chem. 2017;17(18):2041-2055.