Profiling of LINS01 compounds at human dopamine D2 and D3 receptors

Histamine and dopamine neuronal pathways display interesting overlapping in the CNS, especially in the limbic areas, making them very attractive to designing drugs with synergistic and/or additive effects. The roles of these systems to treat schizophrenia, drug addiction, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, among others are widely known. The LINS01 compounds were previously reported as histamine H3 receptor (H3R) antagonists and some of them are under evaluation in rodent memory models. Considering their pharmacological potential and similarities to literature dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) and dopamine D3 receptor (D3R) ligands, this work aimed to evaluate these compounds as ligands these receptors by using [3H]spiperone displacement assays. A set of 11 compounds containing the dihydrobenzofuranyl-piperazine core with substituents at 5-position of dihydrobenzofuran ring and at the piperazine nitrogen was examined. The compounds showed low to moderate affinities at both, D2R and D3R. N-Phenyl compounds LINS01005 (1d), LINS01011 (1h), LINS01012 (1i) and LINS01016 (1k) showed the highest affinities in the set to D3R (Ki 0.3–1.5 µM), indicating that N-phenylpiperazine moiety increases the affinity to this receptor subtype with some selectivity, since they showed lower affinities to D2R (Ki 1.3–5.5 µM). With the LINS01 compounds showing moderate binding affinity, new lead structures for optimization with regards to combined H3R and D2R/D3R-ligands are provided. Histamine and dopamine neuronal pathways display interesting overlapping in the CNS, and thus LINS01 compounds previously reported as histamine H3 receptor antagonists were evaluated as dopamine D2R and D3R ligands. The compounds showed micromolar affinities to both receptors