New Panel Of Mice Helps Predict How Drugs Are Broken Down In Humans, TaconicArtemis Study

ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2008) — Humans express several proteins that breakdown the synthetic chemicals and drugs (collectively known as xenobiotics) that we ingest or are administered. Expression of these proteins is itself regulated by the xenobiotic-sensing proteins PXR and CAR. Developing animal models to determine the relative importance of PXR and CAR for humans to breakdown a specific drug has been difficult because the human and animal proteins sense different xenobiotics.