Synthesis and pharmacology of new psychoactive substance 5F-CUMYL-P7AICA, a scaffold- hopping analog of synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists 5F-CUMYL-PICA and 5F-CUMYL-PINACA

• Published in: Drug testing and analysis Vol. 11; no. 2; p. 279
• Main Authors: Banister, Samuel D, Adams, Axel, Kevin, Richard C, Macdonald, Christa, Glass, Michelle, Boyd, Rochelle, Connor, Mark, McGregor, Iain S, Havel, Christopher M, Bright, Stephen J, Vilamala, Mireia Ventura, Lladanosa, Cristina Gil, Barratt, Monica J, Gerona, Roy R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 01.02.2019
• Subjects: Animals; Body Temperature - drug effects; Cannabinoid Receptor Agonists - chemical synthesis; Cannabinoid Receptor Agonists - pharmacology; Cannabinoids - chemical synthesis; Cannabinoids - pharmacology; Cell Line, Tumor; Cells, Cultured; Humans; Indazoles - chemical synthesis; Indazoles - pharmacology; Indoles - chemical synthesis; Indoles - pharmacology; Male; Mice; Radioligand Assay - statistics & numerical data; Receptor, Cannabinoid, CB1 - metabolism; Receptor, Cannabinoid, CB2 - metabolism; mass spectrometry; P7AICA; PINACA; cannabinoid; pharmacology
• ISSN: 1942-7611
• DOI: 10.1002/dta.2491

Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRAs) are a dynamic class of new psychoactive substances (NPS), with novel chemotypes emerging each year. Following the putative detection of 5F-CUMYL-P7AICA in Australia in 2016, the scaffold-hopping SCRAs 5F-CUMYL-PICA, 5F-CUMYL-PINACA, and 5F-CUMYL-P7AICA were synthesized and characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight-MS (LC-QTOF-MS). Since little is known of the pharmacology of 7-azaindole SCRAs like 5F-CUMYL-P7AICA, the binding affinities and functional activities of all compounds at cannabinoid type 1 and type 2 receptors (CB and CB , respectively) were assessed using tritiated radioligand competition experiments and fluorescence-based plate reader membrane potential assays. Despite CB binding affinities differing by over two orders of magnitude (K  = 2.95-174 nM), all compounds were potent and efficacious CB agonists (EC  = 0.43-4.7 nM), with consistent rank order for binding and functional activity (5F-CUMYL-PINACA >5F-CUMYL-PICA >5F-CUMYL-P7AICA). Additionally, 5F-CUMYL-P7AICA was found to exert potent cannabimimetic effects in mice, inducing hypothermia (6°C, 3 mg/kg) through a CB -dependent mechanism.