The effects of three kinds of penicillin-based antibiotics, amoxicillin, ampicillin, and piperacillin, on drug-metabolizing activity of human hepatic cytochrome P450 (P450 or CYP) were investigated. Metabolic activities of P450s expressed in recombinant Escherichia coli at substrate concentrations around the Michaelis constant were compared in the presence or absence of the antibiotics. Amoxicillin, ampicillin, and piperacillin at 0.5 or 1 mM concentrations neither inhibited nor stimulated CYP2C9-mediated tolbutamide methylhydroxylation, CYP2D6-mediated dopamine formation from p-tyramine, or CYP3A4- or CYP3A5-mediated testosterone 6β-hydroxylation. However, amoxicillin and piperacillin inhibited CYP2C8-mediated aminopyrine N-demethylation at 50% inhibitory concentration of 0.83 and 1.14 mM, respectively. These results suggest that piperacillin might inhibit CYP2C8 clinically, although the interactions between these three penicillin-based antibiotics and other drugs that are metabolized by P450s investigated would not be clinically significant.