Structure-based discovery of nonhallucinogenic psychedelic analogs

  • Science. 2022 Jan 28;375(6579):403-411. doi: 10.1126/science.abl8615.
Dongmei Cao  #  1 ,  Jing Yu  #  1 ,  Huan Wang  #  2 ,  Zhipu Luo  #  3 ,  Xinyu Liu  #  4 ,  Licong He  1 ,  Jianzhong Qi  1 ,  Luyu Fan  1 ,  Lingjie Tang  1 ,  Zhangcheng Chen  1 ,  Jinsong Li  4 ,  Jianjun Cheng  2 ,  Sheng Wang  1
Affiliations
  • 1. State Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yueyang Road, Shanghai 200031, China.
  • 2. iHuman Institute, ShanghaiTech University, 393 Middle Huaxia Road, Shanghai 201210, China.
  • 3. Institute of Molecular Enzymology, School of Biology and Basic Medical Sciences, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123, China.
  • 4. State Key Laboratory of Cell Biology, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yueyang Road, Shanghai 200031, China.
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 35084960 DOI: 10.1126/science.abl8615
Abstract

Drugs that target the human serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) are used to treat neuropsychiatric diseases; however, many have hallucinogenic effects, hampering their use. Here, we present structures of 5-HT2AR complexed with the psychedelic drugs psilocin (the active metabolite of psilocybin) and d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), as well as the endogenous neurotransmitter serotonin and the nonhallucinogenic psychedelic analog lisuride. Serotonin and psilocin display a second binding mode in addition to the canonical mode, which enabled the design of the psychedelic IHCH-7113 (a substructure of antipsychotic lumateperone) and several 5-HT2AR β-arrestin-biased agonists that displayed antidepressant-like activity in mice but without hallucinogenic effects. The 5-HT2AR complex structures presented herein and the resulting insights provide a solid foundation for the structure-based design of safe and effective nonhallucinogenic psychedelic analogs with therapeutic effects.

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