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Lipophilicity

Lipophilicity is a relative measure of the affinity of a molecule for a lipid medium. Typically, this parameter can be expressed in two ways:

  • Log P, which refers to the logarithm of the partition coefficient of the compound between an organic phase and an aqueous phase at a pH at which all the molecules of the compound are found to be neutral;

  • Log D which corresponds to the distribution coefficient of a compound between an organic phase and an aqueous phase at a specific pH and wherein the molecules of the compound can be in the ionized or neutral form.

pKa is the pH value at which 50% of the molecules of a given compound are in the ionized state and 50% are in the neutral state.
The pKa of a compound is related to its ADMET properties. The study of pKa of a drug bioactive compound allows:


(i) predicting the ionization state of the compound at different physiological pH values and thus predicting absorption of the compound;


(ii) predict the availability of the compound to enter into biological reactions;


(iii) understanding the binding of the compound to both plasma proteins and their own therapeutic targets.

pKa

Why not Octanol/Water biphasic system??

Membranes do not consist merely of apolar portions of acids, also having polar groups which may be neutral or charged either positively or negatively.

Our biphasic system

The characteristics of our biphasic systems allow interactions between the drug and the membranes, such as hydrogen interactions, dipole-dipole interactions and electrostatic interactions to be taken into account in the partition analysis of the compound.

Predictors

Log P

Log D

Order
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