Piperine, a natural product derived from peppercorns, has a variety of biological activities that make it an attractive lead compound for medicinal chemistry. However, piperine has some problematic physicochemical properties including poor aqueous solubility and a susceptibility to UV-induced degradation. In this work, we designed an analog of piperine in which the central conjugated hydrocarbon chain is replaced with a vicinal difluoroalkane moiety. We show that this fluorinated analog of piperine has superior physicochemical properties, and it also has higher potency and selectivity towards one particular drug target, acetylcholinesterase. This work highlights the potential usefulness of the threo-difluoroalkane motif as a surrogate for E-alkenes in medicinal chemistry.
胡椒碱是一种从花椒中提取的天然产物,具有多种生物活性,是一种极具吸引力的药物化学先导化合物。然而,胡椒碱的理化性质存在一些问题,包括水溶性差和容易受紫外线诱导降解。在这项研究中,我们设计了一种哌啶类似物,其中的中心共轭烃链被一个二氟烷基取代。我们的研究表明,这种含氟哌啶类似物具有更优越的理化性质,而且对一个特定的药物靶点--乙酰胆碱酯酶--具有更高的效力和选择性。这项工作凸显了三代二氟烷基作为 E-烯的替代物在药物化学中的潜在用途。