High sensitivity ELISA determination of taxol in various human biological fluids.

Taxol (paclitaxel)--the natural product isolated from Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia)--is a novel agent with high activity in the treatment of patients with several malignant tumors including those resistant to other cytotoxic drugs. The therapeutic index of this promising anticancer drug could be further increased by the exploration of its pharmacokinetic pharmacodynamic relationship in cancer patients. Since taxol is highly protein bound, a very specific and highly sensitive analytical method is required in order to determine free, protein unbound and biologically active taxol species in human physiological fluids: plasma; plasma ultrafiltrate; and salivary fluids. In order to accomplish this, a new indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), for quantitating such a low bioactive taxol concentration level, has been developed in our laboratories. This method uses taxol competitive inhibition of mouse anti-taxol antibodies binding to the solid phase coated antigen 7-succinyltaxol-bovine serum albumin. This indicates recognition of the active taxol in the solution phase, where a diluted horseradish peroxidase labeled goat anti-mouse enzyme conjugate is used. While employing this technique, after systematic optimization of the experimental conditions, we are able to detect the anticipated taxol in plasma ultrafiltrate and salivary fluids at the concentration level of subpicogram per milliliter. The working range of the assay is approximately five orders in magnitude, i.e. from pg ml(-1) to 100 ng ml(-1). The clinical part of this study verified the working range of the ELISA method using samples of physiological fluids from a cancer patient treated with 3 h intravenous (i.v.) infusion of this drug. Our results of taxol determination in plasma, plasma ultrafiltrate and saliva demonstrate the applicability of the newly developed ELISA method for further pharmacokinetic studies of free, biologically active taxol species in cancer patients.