Disclosing the redox metabolism of drugs: the essential role of electrochemistry

Abstract Electrochemical methods provide a wide range of strategies to explore the metabolism of drugs. These approaches traditionally encompass preparative aspects viz. the electrochemical generation of potent metabolites or the electrochemical exploration of the reactivity of redox enzymes (or their mimics) towards drugs. More recently the electroanalytical characterization of the successive redox and redox-coupled reactions was found effective to unravel more complex mechanisms, especially those related to the reactivity of bioorganometallic drugs. This minireview highlights the contribution of these different electrochemical strategies to the determination of drug metabolism through representative recent examples.