Discovery and characterization of 2-(cyclopropanesulfonamido)-N-(2-ethoxyphenyl)benzamide, ML382: a potent and selective positive allosteric modulator of MrgX1.

Previous studies have shown that activation of mouse MrgC11, a G-protein coupled receptor, by its peptide ligand BAM8-22 can inhibit chronic pain. A large scale screen has been carried out to isolate small molecule allosteric agonists of MrgX1, the human homologue of MrgC11. The goal of this study is to improve the efficacy and potency of the positive allosteric modulators with therapeutic implications of anti-chronic pain. Here, we report an iterative parallel synthesis effort and a structure-activity relationship of a series of arylsulfonamides, which led to the discovery of the first positive allosteric modulator (PAM) of MrgX1, ML382.