Pleiotropy (drugs) can respond to them, because the endogenous ones are endocrine messengers. Pleiotropy (drugs) In pharmacology, pleiotropy includes all of a drug's actions other than those for which the agent was specifically developed. It may include adverse effects which are detrimental ones, but is often used to denote additional beneficial effects. For example, statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors that primarily act by decreasing cholesterol synthesis, but which are believed to have other beneficial effects, including acting as antioxidants and stabilizing atherosclerotic plaques. Steroid drugs, such as prednisone and prednisolone, have pleiotropic effects, including systemic ones, for the same reason that endogenous
Discovery and development of statins lipophilic and also had the largest percentage of serious adverse effects due to its ability to inhibit vascular smooth muscle proliferation and as a result was voluntarily removed from the market by the manufacturer. All statins are (metabolized) by the liver, which causes their low systemic bioavailability. Lovastatin and simvastatin are administered in their lactone forms, which is more lipophilic than their free acid forms, and therefore they have to be activated by hydrolysis to the active anionic carboxylate form. Cytochrome P450(CYP) isoenzymes are involved in the oxidative metabolism of the statins, with CYP3A4 and CYP2C9 isoenzymes being the most