Novel tail and head group prostamide probes

We report the design and synthesis of novel prostaglandin-ethanolamide (PGE2-EA) analogs containing head and tail group modifications to aid in the characterization of a putative prostamide receptor(s). Our synthetic approach utilizes Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons and Wittig reactions to construct the head and the tail moieties of the key PGE2 precursor, which leads to the final products through a peptide coupling, Swern oxidation and HF/pyridine assisted desilylation. The synthesized analogs were shown not to interact significantly with endocannabinoid proteins and recombinant EP1, EP3 and EP4 receptors and suggest a yet to be identified prostamide receptor as their site(s) of action.