Development of Macrocyclic Neurotensin Receptor Type 2 (NTS2) Opioid-Free Analgesics

The opioid crisis has highlighted the urgent need to develop non-opioid alternatives for managing pain, with an effective, safe, and non-addictive pharmacotherapeutic profile. Using an extensive structure-activity relationship approach, here we have identified a new series of highly selective Neurotensin Receptor type 2 (NTS2) macrocyclic compounds that exert potent, opioid-independent analgesia in various experimental pain models. To our knowledge, the constrained macrocycle in which the Ile¹² residue of NT(7-12) was substituted by cyclopentylalanine, Pro⁷ and Pro¹⁰ were replaced by allyl-glycine followed by side-chain to side-chain cyclization is the most selective analog targeting NTS2 identified to date (K_i 2.9 nM), showing 30,000-fold selectivity over NTS1. Of particular importance, this macrocyclic analog is also able to potentiate the analgesic effects of morphine in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Exerting complementary analgesic actions via distinct mechanisms of nociceptive transmission, NTS2-selective macrocycles can therefore be exploited as opioid-free analgesics or as opioid-sparing therapeutics, offering superior pain relief with reduced adverse effects to pain patients.

GPCR; NTS2; analgesia; cyclic peptides; opioid-sparing; pain; structure–activity relationship.