Environmental Comparative Pharmacology: Theory and Application

Abstract

Ecotoxicity data is still scarce for most pharmaceuticals. The vast knowledge base derived from mammalian studies during drug development could, however, provide insights into possible effects of residual pharmaceuticals in exposed nontarget species. In this chapter, we start from a theoretical point-of-view and discuss ways to predict the conservation of proteins and pathways known to be affected by drugs in model species and in the human body. We also describe different databases where relevant pharmacological data is easily accessible and what type of data is suitable for large-scale comparisons. We believe high-throughput comparative efforts can aid in the prioritization of which drugs need further assessment of their environmental risks, assist in the selection of appropriate test organisms and endpoints and identify limitations with species extrapolations. Without any attempt to be comprehensive, we also give some selected examples on both theoretically and empirically derived pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamic data in nontarget species.