Pesticides are now recognised to interact with drug transporters, but only few data are available on this issue for carbamate pesticides, a widely used class of agrochemicals, to which humans are highly exposed. The present study was therefore designed to determine whether four representative carbamate pesticides, i.e. the insecticides aminocarb and carbofuran, the herbicide chlorpropham and the fungicide propamocarb, may impair activities of main drug transporters implicated in pharmacokinetics. The interactions of carbamates with solute carrier and ATP-binding cassette transporters were investigated using cultured transporter-overexpressing cells, reference substrates and spectrofluorimetry-, liquid chomatography/tandem mass spectrometry- or radioactivity-based methods. Aminocarb and carbofuran exerted no or minimal effects on transporter activities, whereas chlorpropham inhibited BCRP and OAT3 activities and propamocarb decreased those of OCT1 and OCT2, but cis-stimulated that of MATE2-K. Such alterations of transporters however required chlorpropham/propamocarb concentrations in the 5-50 µM range, likely not relevant to environmental exposure. Trans-stimulation assays and propamocarb accumulation experiments additionally suggested that propamocarb is not a substrate for OCT1, OCT2 and MATE2-K. These data indicate that some carbamate pesticides can interact in vitro with some drug transporters, but only when used at concentrations higher than those expected to occur in environmentally exposed humans.
Keywords: Carbamate pesticides; activity; chlorpropham; drug transporters; inhibition; propamocarb.