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Updated: Aug 5, 2026

A Novel Procedure for Evaluating the Reinforcing Properties of Tastants in Laboratory Rats: Operant Intraoral Self-administration
Published on: February 6, 2014
Active conformations of neotame and other high-potency sweeteners
D E Walters1, I Prakash, N Desai
1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Finch University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School, 3333 Green Bay Road, North Chicago, Illinois 60064, USA. Eric.Walters@finchcms.edu
Abstract:
We carried out extensive conformational analysis of three high-potency sweeteners: neotame, superaspartame, and SC-45647. We then identified six possible pharmacophore features (carboxylate, two hydrophobic groups, and three NH groups) and wrote a computer program to exhaustively compare intramolecular distances among all possible sets of five-point pharmacophores (carboxylate + two hydrophobic groups + two NH groups) for the three compounds. The best pharmacophore model superimposes low-energy conformers of the three compounds in such a way that the five pharmacophore points match well both sterically and with respect to orientation of hydrogen bond donors and acceptors.
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