Highly chiral muscarinic ligands: The discovery of (2S,2 ' R,3 ' S,5 ' R)-1-methyl-2-(2-methyl-1,3-oxathiolan-5-yl)pyrrolidine 3-sulfoxide methyl iodide, a potent, functionally selective, M-2 partial agonist

By further steric complication of previously studied highly chiral muscarinic agonists, we have obtained a small chiral library of enantiomeric and diasteromeric 1-methyl-2-(2-methyl-1,3 oxathiolan-5-yl)pyrrolidine 3-sulfoxides. Binding studies on cloned human muscarinic receptors expressed in CHO cells show that the introduction of a fourth stereogenic center gives undetectable affinity for hm1, hm3, hm4 and hm5 subtypes while leaving a quite modest affinity only for hm2 subtypes. However, functional studies on model M1-M4 muscarinic tissues have shown that three compounds of the series [(-)-5, (-)-7, (+)-8] are endowed with functional activity and behave as M2 selective partial agonists. Among them, compound (2S,2¢R,3¢S,5¢R)- 1-methyl-2-(2 methyl-1,3-oxathiolan-5-yl)pyrrolidine 3-sulfoxide methyl iodide [(+)-8] is particularly interesting, as it is a potent partial agonist on guinea pig atrium (force) (M2; pD2 ) 7.65, R ) 0.41) while being a poor antagonist on M1, M3, and M4 model tissues (pKb < 5).