1. Current literature highlights 1.1. Pyrazole CCK 1 receptor antagonists Cholecystokinin (CCK) is an endogenous 33 amino acid peptide hormone first identified by its pharmacological actions early in the last century, and later purified and sequenced in the 1970s. Subsequently, it was shown that CCK was released in response to food intake and that it regulates gallbladder contraction, pancreatic enzyme secretion, gastric acid secretion, and colonic motility amongst other pharmacological effects. CCK is abundant in the CNS and is believed to be involved in aspects of nociception, satiety and anxiogenesis.The biological actions of CCK are mediated through two G-protein coupled receptors, CCK 1 and CCK 2 , and a number of CCK 1 antagonists have been evaluated in the clinic for pancreatic disorders, IBS and biliary colic. Encouraging clinical results from a phase II trial of constipation-dependent IBS with a peptide derived CCK 1 antagonist has given encouragement to pursue non-peptide antagonists of CCK 1 . 1In this recent work, efforts were undertaken to modify an HTS lead (i) that was identified as a potent and selective antagonist of the CCK 1 receptor (pK i 7.6). This compound displayed promising physical properties and represented a novel chemical scaffold for SAR investigations undertaken by the construction of a solution phase library. The synthetic scheme involved varying positions around aromatic centers B and C giving antagonists of CCK 1 with pK i values between 6.2 and 8.1.During the course of these studies, a novel method for the evaluation of SAR in combinatorial matrices was explored. This new methodology provided for a quantitative assessment of additive and non-additive relationships in the SAR, allowing one to identify potential changes in the binding modes of these antagonists. The assumption with additive SAR models is that one variable in the structure does not affect the binding or conformation of the second variable. However, in many documented cases this assumption is invalid, thus limiting the predictive power of additive models. With the advent of combinatorial methods, a full matrix of compounds can be readily accessed synthetically, and the presence of non-additive relationships in the full matrix can suggest either a different binding mode in the biological target or direct interactions between different parts of a ligand. The results from this study indicate that all compounds tested bind to the receptor in a similar binding mode. N N O OH O (i) A B C
Aminopyrrolidinetricarboxylic acids: new group III metabotropic glutamate receptor-selective antagonistsThe glutamate neurotransmitter plays a critical role in many disease processes. Glutamate exerts its effects through two families of receptors: metabotropic (mGlu) and ionotropic (iGlu) receptors. mGlu receptors have been further divided in three groups according to their sequence homologies, pharmacological properties and signal transduction pathways.Group III mGlu receptors include mGlu4, mGlu6, mGlu7 and mGlu8 receptors, which are neg...