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Tacrolimus

Tacrolimus
Tacrolimus2DCSD.svg
Tacrolimus3Dan.gif
Clinical data
Trade names Prograf, Advagraf, Protopic
Pregnancy
category
  • AU: C
  • US: C (Risk not ruled out)
Routes of
administration
Topical, oral, iv
ATC code
Legal status
Legal status
  • In general: ℞ (Prescription only)
Pharmacokinetic data
Bioavailability 24% (5–67%), less after eating food rich in fat
Protein binding ≥98.8%
Metabolism Hepatic CYP3A4, CYP3A5
Biological half-life 11.3 h for transplant patients (range 3.5–40.6 h)
Excretion Mostly faecal
Identifiers
CAS Number
PubChem CID
DrugBank
ChemSpider
UNII
KEGG
ChEMBL
ECHA InfoCard 100.155.367
Chemical and physical data
Formula C44H69NO12
Molar mass 804.018 g/mol
3D model (Jmol)
 NYesY (what is this?)  

Tacrolimus (also FK-506 or fujimycin, trade names Prograf, Advagraf, Protopic) is an immunosuppressive drug used mainly after allogeneic organ transplant to lower the risk of organ rejection. It achieves this by inhibiting the production of interleukin-2, a molecule that promotes the development and proliferation of T cells, which are vital to the body's learned (or adaptive) immune response. Tacrolimus is also used in the treatment of other T cell-mediated diseases such as eczema (for which it is applied to the skin in a medicated ointment), severe refractory uveitis after bone marrow transplants, exacerbations of minimal change disease, Kimura's disease, and the skin condition vitiligo.

Chemically it is a 23-membered macrolide lactone that was first discovered in 1987 from the fermentation broth of a Japanese soil sample that contained the bacterium Streptomyces tsukubaensis.

It has similar immunosuppressive properties to ciclosporin, but is much more potent. Immunosuppression with tacrolimus was associated with a significantly lower rate of acute rejection compared with ciclosporin-based immunosuppression (30.7% vs 46.4%) in one study. Clinical outcome is better with tacrolimus than with ciclosporin during the first year of liver transplantation. Long-term outcome has not been improved to the same extent. Tacrolimus is normally prescribed as part of a post-transplant cocktail including steroids, mycophenolate, and IL-2 receptor inhibitors such as basiliximab. Dosages are titrated to target blood levels.


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