Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0344307 (analgesia)
 28,200 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The activation or interruption of the responses induced by regulatory peptides are ensured by ectoenzymes, the most important of them belonging to the group of zinc metallopeptidases. Thus angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) forms the hypertensive peptide angiotensin II from its inactive precursor AI. This also the case for aminopeptidase N (APN) and neutral endopeptidase 24.11 (NEP, CALLA) which together inactivate the endogenous opioid peptides, enkephalins, whereas only NEP is involved in the metabolism of the atrial natriuretic factor (ANP) at the kidney and vascular levels. The pharmacological effects resulting from the inhibition of these enzymatic processes will appear only in tissues where the peptide substrate is tonically or phasically released. This promising approach is expected to avoid, or at least to minimize, the side effects resulting from excessive and ubiquitous stimulation of peptide receptors by exogenously administered agonists or antagonists. The essential amino acids known to be present in the active site of the bacterial endopeptidase thermolysin from crystallographic studies, have also been found in NEP by using a new program of sequence comparison associated with mutagenesis experiments. Several classes of selective inhibitors of NEP, APN and ACE have been rationally designed by taking into account the structural differences in the active site of these peptidases. Thus, the retro-inversion of the amide bond of the NEP inhibitor thiorphan resulted in the elimination of a residual interaction with ACE. Moreover, we have proposed to associate inhibitory potencies towards two peptidases in the same compound. Thus kelatorphan HONH-CO-CH2-CH(CH2 phi)-CONH-CH(CH3)-COOH and other systemically-active mixed NEP/APN inhibitors were shown capable of completely blocking enkephalin metabolism in vivo. This concept has been extended to mixed NEP/ACE inhibitors with compounds such as HS-CH2-CH(CH2 phi)-CONH-CH(CH2R)-COOH where R = CH-(CH3)2 (ES 34) or -OCH2 phi (ES 37). Only mixed inhibitors of NEP and APN are able to produce potent analgesia after intracerebroventricular or systemic administration without the major side effects of morphine (tolerance and dependence). Thiorphan or its prodrugs acetorphan or sinorphan lead to a increase in natriuresis and diuresis by protection of ANP degradation, but without any significant antihypertensive effect. Contrastingly mixed NEP/ACE inhibitors such as ES34 induce decreases in blood pressure higher than those that produced by the association of selective NEP and ACE inhibitors.
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PMID:[New approach in the research of analgesics and antihypertensive agents]. 184 70

With the aim of producing an analgesia physiologically induced by endogenous opioids, several series of inhibitors of the degradation enzymes of enkephalins have been synthetized by using as a model, at the atomic level, the active site of thermolysin, a bacterial endopeptidase similar to enkephalinase. Thiorphan and retro-thiorphan are very potent inhibitors of enkephalinase (KI = 2 nM), but the retro compound is more selective, as it is unable to recognise the angiotensin conversion enzyme. Recently, a series of inhibitors containing a bidentate group were found to be capable of inhibiting the three metallopeptidases which break down the enkephalins. One of these compounds, kelatorphan, totally protects, in vitro and in vivo, Met-enkephalin from enzymatic degradation. Kelatorphan is the first complete inhibitor of enkephalin metabolism and is the only compound to possess an analgesic activity greater than that of a mixture of thiorphan and bestatin (non-specific aminopeptidase inhibitor). A tritiated derivative of kelatorphan has been used to visualise the enkephalinase in the rat brain by means of autoradiography. The enzyme has a heterogeneous distribution with a particularly high concentration in the nigro-striatal system.
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PMID:[Enkephalinase inhibitors and molecular study of the differences between active sites of enkephalinase and angiotensin-converting enzyme]. 299 52

Acetorphan, i.e. N-[(R,S)-3-acetylmercapto-2-benzylpropanoyl]-glycine, benzyl ester, is a lipophilic derivative of Thiorphan, a potent inhibitor of "enkephalinase" (EC 3.4.24.11). On purified enkephalinase its inhibitory potency was approximately 1000 fold less than that of Thiorphan but became close to the latter (nanomolar) when it was incubated previously with cerebral membranes. After parenteral administration to mice and rats (1-10 mg/kg) extensive inhibition of cerebral enkephalinase was shown by the depressed enzyme activity in brain membranes from treated animals and the long-lasting potentiation of analgesia elicited by (D-Ala2,Met5)enkephalin (i.c.v.). This suggests that acetorphan easily enters the brain where the active Thiorphan is released. Parenteral acetorphan elicited a series of naloxone-reversible, opioid-like effects, most of which were described previously with intracerebral Thiorphan or other enkephalinase inhibitors. Antinociceptive effects were found in some tests (hot plate jump and phenylbenzoquinone-induced writhing) but not in others (hot plate licking and tail withdrawal). "Antidepressant" effect was found in the "mouse despair" test and antidiarrhoeal effect in the rat castor oil test. Acetorphan also elicited significant increases and decreases in turnover indexes of serotonin and noradrenaline, respectively, in mouse cerebral cortex. In mice chronically treated with acetorphan, the antinociceptive activity of the compound was not modified markedly and no overt withdrawal symptom could be observed after either treatment interruption or administration of naloxone.
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PMID:Pharmacological properties of acetorphan, a parenterally active "enkephalinase" inhibitor. 351 39

Experiments were done to examine the analgesic effect of thiorphan alone or in combination with stress in mice. Analgesia was assessed by measuring jump latencies from a 55 degrees C hot plate. Thiorphan exhibited weak analgesic properties evidenced by significant increases in jump latencies only after 300 mg/kg i.p. Additional experiments were done to see the effect of i.c.v. administration of thiorphan in the mouse hot plate test. Control experiments revealed that either i.c.v. saline or sham caused naloxone reversible analgesia which was potentiated by thiorphan (100 mg/kg i.p.). Immobilization stress-induced analgesia was also potentiated by thiorphan (100 mg/kg i.p.) and antagonized by naloxone (10 mg/kg i.p.). The results suggest that stress-induced analgesia in the mouse is associated with an endogenous opioid mechanism which is potentiated when enkephalin degradation is inhibited by thiorphan.
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PMID:Thiorphan potentiation of stress-induced analgesia in the mouse. 675 20