Reevaluation of the Roles of ABCG2 in the Disposition of Genistein

It was recently proposed that the improved oral bioavailability of genistein aglycone and conjugates in Bcrp1(−/−) mice is mainly due to increased intestinal absorption of aglycone and subsequent elevated exposure to conjugation enzymes. Here we tested this proposed mechanism and found that intestinal absorption of genistein aglycone did not increase in Bcrp1(−/−) mice compared with wild-type mice using an in situ mouse intestinal perfusion model and that inhibition of breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) in Caco-2 cells also did not significantly increase permeability or intracellular concentration of aglycone. Separately, we showed that 5- to 10-fold increases in exposures of conjugates and somewhat lower fold increases (