Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel 9-heteroaryl substituted 7-chloro-4,5-dihydro-4-oxo-1,2,4-triazolo[1,5-a]quinoxaline-2-carboxylates (TQX) as AMPA receptor antagonists.

In this paper, we report a study on some new 4,5-dihydro-4-oxo-1,2,4-triazolo[1,5-a]quinoxaline-2-carboxylate derivatives (TQXs), bearing a nitrogen-containing heterocycle at position-9, and designed as (R,S)-2-amino- 3-(3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazol-4-yl)propionic acid (AMPA) receptor antagonists. These compounds ensue from the structural modification of previously reported 8-heteroaryl-TQXs which were endowed with high affinity and selectivity for the AMPA receptor. All the newly synthesized compounds were biologically evaluated for their binding at the AMPA receptor. Gly/N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) and kainic acid (KA) high-affinity binding assays were performed to assess the selectivity of the reported derivatives toward the AMPA receptor. This study produced some new TQXs which are less potent than the reference compounds, and endowed with a mixed AMPA and Gly/NMDA receptor binding affinity. To rationalize the experimental findings, a molecular modeling study was performed by docking some TQX derivatives to the AMPA receptor model.