Deuterium - A Natural Isotope to Combat Microbial Resistance

Deuterated medicinal chemistry is an attempt to introduce deuterium into existing drug molecules through the replacement of hydrogen atoms (-H) with deuterium (-D). The process of deuteration is to reduce the rates of breaking the carbonhydrogen bond. If the carbon-hydrogen bond breaking is the rate-determining step in the biotransformation of the drug, the deuterated drug may show improved pharmacokinetic characteristics, such as a longer half-life, hence lowering the need for frequent dosing. In this review, we discuss the improvement in the drug’s pharmacokinetic profile with deuterium. Further, this Deuterium exchange chemistry can reduce toxicity and be safe for human use. Also, the drugs experimented with using deuterium are discussed as how deuterated chemistry can help fight antimicrobial resistance. Beyond all, still, the design and development of a successful deuterated drug with acceptable efficacy is hence a challenge. The translation of hypotheses from laboratory experiments to clinical application and further to real-time practice is unpredictable. Also, long-term drug stability and toxicity studies for individual drugs are to be studied which may vary from patient to patient.