Chemistry around imidazopyrazine and ibuprofen: discovery of novel fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitors.

Based on the imidazo-[1,2-a]-pyrazin-3-(7H)-one scaffold, a dual action prodrug has been designed for combining antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, possibly unmasked upon oxidation. The construction of the target-molecule requires two building blocks, namely a 2-amino-1,4-pyrazine and a 2-ketoaldehyde. Attempts to synthesize the 2-ketoaldehyde (5a) derived from ibuprofen failed, but led to the corresponding 2-ketoaldoxime (7a) which could not be condensed with the pyrazine synthons. However, a model compound, i.e. phenylglyoxal aldoxime, reacted well under microwave activation to furnish novel imidazo[1,2-a]-pyrazine-3-(7H)-imine derivatives (18a,b). These heterobicycles behave as antioxidants by inhibiting the lipid peroxidation, and one compound (18b) is endowed with a significant anti-inflammatory effect in a cellular test. Unexpectedly, all the synthetic intermediates derived from ibuprofen are good inhibitors of FAAH, the most active compound (4a) featuring the 1,3-dithian-2-yl motif.

In vitro and in vivo studies of 6,8-(diaryl)imidazo[1,2-a]pyrazin-3(7H)-ones as new antioxidants.

A series of 5-aryl and 3,5-diaryl-2-amino-1,4-pyrazines and the derived imidazopyrazinones has been synthesized to study the chemical oxidative degradation of the bicyclic systems in vitro. Imidazopyrazinones mainly degraded following two independent pathways producing their precursors, namely aminopyrazines, and the corresponding amidopyrazines, respectively. Despite the fact that there is no influence of the substituent of the 3-aryl group on the ratio of the products aminopyrazine/amidopyrazine, diarylimidazopyrazinones and diarylaminopyrazines are good antioxidants in vivo. They protected against microvascular damages in ischemia/reperfusion with similar efficiencies.