How do prodrugs exactly work? Are there multiple varieties of prodrugs?

Question

I have been reading about a (new?) prodrug of LSD, 1CP-LSD, which is being synthesized in the body to LSD.

However, I don't know how exactly. I read somewhere, that another prodrug of LSD, 1P-LSD was put into a vial of human blood, and it was synthesized to LSD. Which is kind of hard to belive, that just exposure in blood synthesizes 1P-LSD to LSD. What processes in the body are responsible for this, are there another processes for synthesizing another prodrugs to their respective drugs?

Are there multiple varieties of prodrugs? By that I mean that they synthesize themselves using another method instead of one another.

Answer 1

Prodrugs are extremely common; we often don't even think of some of them as prodrugs unless we're also familiar with the metabolite. Psilocybin, for example, is a prodrug; the active molecule is psilocin. Aspirin is a prodrug of salicylic acid (though there are also other active metabolites).

Prodrugs can be categorized according to where they are converted to active forms: intracellularly in target tissue or other organs like the liver, or extracellularly like in the gut or in the bloodstream. The Wikipedia link at the beginning of this answer includes a table with some examples.

Prodrugs may be converted to active forms by enzymes or by environmental conditions in the body, like pH. I'd argue they are diverse enough that it doesn't make all that much sense to study them as a category, rather that in any pharmacological class of drugs you should be aware that they may be administered in a modified form, often to improve bioavailability or storage stability.