• Anna Rizzi, Maria Camilla Cerlesi, Chiara Ruzza, Davide Malfacini, Federica Ferrari, Sara Bianco, Tommaso Costa, Remo Guerrini, Claudio Trapella, and Girolamo Calo'.
• Department of Medical Sciences Section of Pharmacology and National Institute of Neuroscience University of Ferrara Ferrara Italy.
• Pharmacol Res Perspect. 2016 Aug 1; 4 (4): e00247.

AbstractThe aim of the study was to investigate the in vitro and in vivo pharmacological profile of cebranopadol, a novel agonist for opioid and nociceptin/orphanin FQ (N/OFQ) receptors (NOP). In vitro cebranopadol was assayed in calcium mobilization studies in cells coexpressing NOP or opioid receptors and chimeric G-proteins and in a bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) assay for studying receptor interaction with G-protein and β-arrestin 2. The mouse tail withdrawal and formalin tests were used for investigating cebranopadol antinociceptive properties. In calcium mobilization studies cebranopadol showed the following rank order of potency NOP = mu > kappa ≥ delta. In BRET studies, cebranopadol promoted NOP and mu receptors interaction with G-protein with similar high potency and efficacy. However, cebranopadol did not stimulated NOP-β-arrestin 2 interactions and displayed reduced potency at mu/β-arrestin 2. In vivo, cebranopadol exhibits highly potent and extremely long-lasting antinociceptive effects. The effects of cebranopadol in the tail withdrawal assay were sensitive to both SB-612111 and naloxone. Collectively the present results confirm and extend previous finding demonstrating that cebranopadol, by acting as mixed NOP/opioid receptor agonist, elicits robust analgesic effects in different pain models.

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