LiverTox Catalog Places Four Incretin-Based Diabetes Drugs in Chemical Focus
LiverTox, the NCBI clinical and research resource on drug-induced liver injury, includes a compact chemical registry for incretin-based drugs that are already familiar in diabetes care. In this table, four DPP-4 inhibitors appear side by side: alogliptin, linagliptin, saxagliptin, and sitagliptin. The entry is not a clinical outcomes report and does not attempt to rank benefit or harm; instead, it records the structural identifiers that define each compound in a way that can be traced across pharmacology, toxicology, and regulatory review.
Alogliptin is listed with CAS registry number 850649-62-6 and the molecular formula C18-H21-N5-O2.C7-H6-O2. Linagliptin is listed with CAS registry number 668270-12-0 and molecular formula C25-H28-N8-O2. Saxagliptin carries CAS registry number 945667-22-1 and molecular formula C18-H25-N3-O2.H2O. Sitagliptin appears with CAS registry number 486460-32-6 and molecular formula C16-H15-F6-N5-O. Those identifiers are the kind of chemical anchors that matter when a clinician, pharmacist, or safety reviewer needs to distinguish one agent from another without relying on brand names alone.
The table is spare, but the clinical logic behind it is not. Drugs in the same therapeutic family can share a mechanism and still differ in molecular shape, salt form, hydration state, and atom composition. Those differences influence how a compound is manufactured, cataloged, and compared in safety databases. They also matter when liver safety questions arise, because pharmacovigilance begins with knowing exactly which molecule was given, in what form, and under what name. A medication with a similar clinical role can still have a distinct chemical identity, and that identity is the foundation for any meaningful causality assessment.
Chemical Identity as the Starting Point for Drug Safety Review
LiverTox exists to organize information about drug-induced liver injury, and a table of formulas and structures serves a practical purpose within that mission. Before a pattern of adverse events can be analyzed, the compound itself must be pinned down. Alogliptin, linagliptin, saxagliptin, and sitagliptin all sit within the incretin-based class, but each carries its own registry number and molecular composition. In a safety archive, that precision protects against the kind of confusion that can blur separate drugs into a single undifferentiated category.
The structural listing also reflects how closely modern therapeutics are tied to chemistry. Incretin-based agents are designed around a biologically active target, yet their real-world behavior is determined by the exact molecular architecture selected by the manufacturer. Even subtle differences in arrangement can change solubility, exposure, or metabolism, all of which are relevant when adverse hepatic effects are being reviewed. The table does not state those properties directly, and it does not need to. Its purpose is to establish the chemical map first, because every later discussion of liver injury depends on that map remaining accurate.
Alogliptin is presented as a compound with a paired formula representation, a reminder that chemical records often include salt or co-formulated components. Saxagliptin is listed with a hydrate designation, H2O, which is another small but important signal that the documented form is not just an abstract name. These details are not decorative. They are the kind of formal descriptors that let databases, clinicians, and researchers speak about the same substance without ambiguity.
Why a Simple Table Matters in Hepatic Pharmacovigilance
At bedside level, clinicians usually think in terms of glucose control, dosing schedules, comorbid kidney disease, and medication tolerance. In a hepatology reference, the first step is more fundamental: naming the exact agent in a reproducible way. That is why a table of CAS numbers, formulas, and structures has value even when it contains no adverse event counts, no enzyme patterns, and no case narratives. It is the skeleton on which future safety interpretation hangs.
For drugs linked to diabetes management, the liver is a relevant organ of interest because hepatic metabolism and hepatic injury are both part of the broader drug-safety conversation. The LiverTox format separates identity from interpretation. It tells the reader what alogliptin, linagliptin, saxagliptin, and sitagliptin are at the chemical level, then leaves the downstream clinical analysis to other sections of the resource. That separation keeps evidence orderly. It also prevents the common error of assuming that one member of a class carries identical properties simply because it shares a therapeutic label with another.
The structure images attached to each drug entry reinforce that point in a visual way. Molecular diagrams are not ornamental in toxicology references; they are the language of comparison. When a class includes multiple agents that act in related pathways, structural distinctions help explain why one compound may need to be considered separately from another in case reports, literature reviews, and causality assessments. The table does not provide a verdict on liver risk. It provides the exact chemical coordinates needed to pursue one.
Four Drugs, Four Records, One Reference Function
Alogliptin, linagliptin, saxagliptin, and sitagliptin are grouped together because they belong to the same incretin-based drug category, but the table makes clear that each drug is independently cataloged. The CAS registry number is unique for each one, and the molecular formula is listed alongside the structure image. That format turns a broad therapeutic class into a set of distinct records, which is the right unit of analysis for drug safety work.
The table also shows how LiverTox integrates chemistry into its larger drug-injury framework. This is not a narrative of side effects or a clinical trial summary. It is a reference instrument, useful precisely because it stays close to first principles. By recording formulas and structures for these DPP-4 inhibitors, the resource gives clinicians and researchers a consistent baseline for identifying the compounds that may later appear in liver injury assessments, literature searches, or pharmacovigilance reports.
One practical consequence follows directly from that design: when a patient is taking a medication from this class and liver enzymes rise, the starting question is not simply whether the medicine is an incretin-based agent. The starting question is which agent, in which chemical form, and under which formal record. That level of specificity is what allows a liver safety database to remain clinically useful rather than merely descriptive.
The table ends there, and that restraint is part of its value. No adverse-event rate is supplied, no comparative toxicity claim is made, and no class-wide conclusion is drawn. What remains is a clean chemical inventory of four diabetes drugs within LiverTox, ready to support the deeper liver-injury analysis that would follow in the broader monograph.