Conjugation of carboxylate drugs with D-glucuronic acid is of considerable interest because of the inherent reactivity of the resulting beta-1-O-acyl glucuronides. These conjugates can degrade by spontaneous hydrolysis and internal acyl migration. beta-1-O-acyl glucuronides and their acyl migration products can also react covalently with macromolecules with potential toxicological consequences. The spontaneous degradation of the diastereoisomeric beta-1-O-acyl glucuronide metabolites of the racemic drug ketoprofen, two of its ring-hydroxylated metabolites and of tolmetin beta-1-O-acyl glucuronide was investigated by (1)H-NMR spectroscopy in buffer solutions, at pH 7.4 and 37 degrees C. A plot of the logarithm of the peak integrals against time revealed first-order kinetics. Degradation rates and half-lives were calculated for each glucuronide using first-order reaction equations. Tolmetin glucuronide had the fastest degradation rate, whilst all of the ketoprofen-related glucuronides had similar degradation rates. The degradation of the diastereoisomeric glucuronides was stereoselective, with the rate for the (S)-isomer always slower compared with the (R)-isomer by approximately a factor of 2.