Papers of the Week

Effective and safe analgesics represent an unmet medical need for the treatment of acute and chronic pain. A series of N-cyclopropylmethyl-7α-phenyl-6,14-endoethano-tetrahydronorthebaines were designed, synthesized and assayed, leading to the discovery of a benzylamine derivative (compound 4, SLL-039) as a highly selective and potent κ opioid agonist (κ, Ki=0.47 nM, κ/μ=682, κ/δ=283), which was confirmed by functional assays in vitro and antinociceptive assays in vivo. The in vivo effect could be blocked by pretreatment with the selective κ antagonist nor-BNI. Moreover, this compound did not induce sedation, a common dose limiting effect of κ opioid receptor agonists, at its analgesic dose compared to U50,488H. The dissociation of sedation/antinociception found in SLL-039 was assumed to be correlated with the occupation of its benzamide motif in a unique subsite involving V1182.63, W124EL1 and E209EL2.