Investigation of interaction between the drug and cell membrane by capillary electrophoresis

By introducing cell membrane into electrophoretic buffer as pseudo-stationary phase, a novel capillary electrophoresis method was established to explore the interaction between drugs and cell membrane, where the interaction between citalopram and rabbit red blood cell membrane was used as an example. A series of concentrations of cell membrane were suspended into the running buffer by peak-shift method. The binding constant of citalopram to rabbit red blood cell membrane of 0.977 g^?1·L was obtained after treatment of Scatchard plot. This method could provide not only a new way for the investigation on the interactions between drugs and cell membrane, but also a new approach for high throughput screening of the drug membrane permeability, biological activity, and evaluating drugs in vivo.