Anabaseine is a marine worm toxin that is a relatively non-selective
nicotinic agonist, activating both muscle-type and neuronal
nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) with varying efficacy. While
anabaseine has significant activity with muscle-type and neuronal alpha 3 beta 4 and alpha 4 beta 2 receptors, benzylidene
anabaseine (BA) derivatives have high selectivity for the alpha 7 receptor subtype. Two BA compounds with substituents at the 2 and 4 positions of the benzylidene ring,
GTS-21 and
4OH-GTS-21, may have therapeutic potential for treating neuropathological disorders such as
Alzheimer's disease due to their alpha 7 selectivity. In this study, we specifically investigated the influence of the benzylidene attachment to
anabaseine on alpha 7
nicotinic receptor selectivity, as well as the effects of specific substituents at the 4- position of the benzylidene moiety. We demonstrate that benzylidene-attachment alone is sufficient to confer alpha 7 selectivity to
anabaseine. Increased potency and receptor binding affinity was obtained with a 4-hydroxyl substitution. Two other 4-substituted benzylidene anabaseines, 3-(4'-methylthiobenzylidene)anabaseine (4-MeS-BA) and 3-(4-trifluoromethylbenzylidene)
anabaseine (4-CF(3)-BA), offered very little agonist activity for any
nicotinic receptors and instead were antagonists for both alpha 7 and neuronal alpha 3 beta 4 and alpha 4 beta 2 receptors. Since the relative amounts of agonist and antagonist activities for specific BA compounds vary with the specific
drug/receptor combinations, benzylidene anabaseines provide valuable tools for nAChR
drug-receptor structure-function relationships.