Induction of drug metabolism in the rat by taglutimide, a sedative-hypnotic glutarimide derivative.

Pretreatment with taglutimide significantly decreased the plasma dicoumarol level and shortened the duration of hexobarbital-induced narcosis in rats. Furthermore, taglutimide pretreatment accelerated the in vitro metabolism of dicoumarol, hexobarbital, o-nitrophenyl acetate and procaine, but not of 3,4-benzypyrene, as assayed in the 10,000xg supernatant fraction of rat liver homogenate. No definite increase was observed in liver wet weight, nor in the amount of microsomal and total liver protein in comparison with the control values. No marked differences were found between the effects of short- (4-day) and long-term (17-day) pretreatment on any of the studied parameters. The changes in drug metabolism and liver protein observed after taglutimide pretreatment differed from those observed after pretreatment with either phenobarbital or 3,4-benzypyrene. Taglutimide, like other inducing agents, is lipophilic, but differs from them in not being a substrate of monooxygenases.