In Vitro Solubility Assays in Drug Discovery

The solubility of a compound depends on its structure and solution conditions. Structure determines the lipophilicity, hydrogen bonding, molecular volume, crystal energy and ionizability, which determine solubility. Solution conditions are affected by pH, cosolvents, additives, ionic strength, time and temperature. Many drug discovery experiments are conducted under "kinetic" solubility conditions. In drug discovery, solubility has a major impact on bioassays, formulation for in vivo dosing, and intestinal absorption. A good goal for the solubility of drug discovery compounds is > 60 ug/mL. Equilibrium solubility assays can be conducted in moderate throughput, by incubating excess solid with buffer and agitating for several days, prior to filtration and HPLC quantitation. Kinetic solubility assays are performed in high throughput with shorter incubation times and high throughput analyses using plate readers. The most frequently used of these are the nephelometric assay and direct UV assay, which begin by adding a small volume of DMSO stock solution of each test compound to buffer. In nephelometry, this solution is serially diluted across a microtitre plate and undissolved particles are detected via light scattering. In direct UV, undissolved particles are separated by filtration, after which the dissolved material is quantitated using UV absorption. Equilibrium solubility is useful for preformulation. Kinetic solubility is useful for rapid compound assessment, guiding optimization via structure modification, and diagnosing bioassays. It is often useful to customize solubility experiments using conditions that answer specific research questions of drug discovery teams, such as compound selection and vehicle development for pharmacology and PK studies.