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Updated: Mar 15, 2026

Studying Pre-formed Fibril Induced α-Synuclein Accumulation in Primary Embryonic Mouse Midbrain Dopamine Neurons
Published on: August 16, 2020
Novel multifunctional dopamine D2/D3 receptors agonists with potential neuroprotection and anti-alpha synuclein
Dan Luo1, Horrick Sharma1, Deepthi Yedlapudi1
1Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, United States.
Abstract:
Our ongoing drug development endeavor to design compounds for symptomatic and neuroprotective treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD) led us to carry out a structure activity relationship study based on dopamine agonists pramipexole and 5-OHDPAT. Our goal was to incorporate structural elements in these agonists in a way to preserve their agonist activity while producing inhibitory activity against aggregation of α-synuclein protein. In our design we appended various catechol and related phenol derivatives to the parent agonists via different linker lengths. Structural optimization led to development of several potent agonists among which (-)-8a, (-)-14 and (-)-20 exhibited potent neuroprotective properties in a cellular PD model involving neurotoxin 6-OHDA. The lead compounds (-)-8a and (-)-14 were able to modulate aggregation of α-synuclein protein efficiently. Finally, in an in vivo PD animal model, compound (-)-8a exhibited efficacious anti-parkinsonian effect.
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