Discovery of (R)-2-amino-3-triazolpropanoic acid derivatives as NMDA receptor glycine site agonists with GluN2 subunit-specific activity

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N-Methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors play critical roles in central nervous system function and are involved in variety of brain disorders. We previously developed a series of (R)-3-(5-furanyl)carboxamido-2-aminopropanoic acid glycine site agonists with pronounced variation in activity among NMDA receptor GluN1/2A-D subtypes. Here, a series of (R)-2-amino-3-triazolpropanoic acid analogues with a novel chemical scaffold is designed and their pharmacological properties are evaluated at NMDA receptor subtypes. We found that the triazole can function as a bioisostere for amide to produce glycine site agonists with variation in activity among NMDA receptor subtypes. Compounds 13g and 13i are full and partial agonists, respectively, at GluN1/2C and GluN1/2D with 3- to 7-fold preference in agonist potency for GluN1/2C-D over GluN1/2A-B subtypes. The agonist binding mode of these triazole analogues and the mechanisms by which the triazole ring can serve as a bioisostere for amide were further explored using molecular dynamics simulations. Thus, the novel (R)-2-amino-3-triazolpropanoic acid derivatives reveal insights to agonist binding at the GluN1 subunit of NMDA receptors and provide new opportunities for the design of glycine site agonists.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1008233
JournalFrontiers in Chemistry
Volume10
Number of pages13
ISSN2296-2646
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Institutes of Health [NS097536, GM140963] to KH and a Summer Fellowship to ML. from the Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience at the University of Montana. FZ acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [82204200], the China Scholarship Council, the International Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship Program (Talent-Introduction Program) [YJ20210,279], the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2022M711939], and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province [ZR2022QH287 and ZR2022QH312].

Funding Information:
We would like to acknowledge Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, for supporting the research.

    Research areas

  • co-agonist, ionotropic glutamate receptors, ligand-gated ion channel, subtype selectivity, two-electrode voltage-clamp electrophysiology

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