cool paper. my thoughts:
i think basically this guy is a chemist that is creating retigabine analogues that may have better or worse pharmacodynamics / kinetics. the changes to Zone 1 can aid with experimentation that 'would allow us to probe the structure-activity relationship of retigabine' by replacing the Flourine (F) with other groups that can lead to 'improved peptide mimicry, potency, and selectivity'. This is also an interesting quote: 'Decreasing the basicity of the secondary aniline could decrease clearance of the compound.', meaning it could be made more potent. Zone 2 changes are to the carbamate. one sentence stood out: 'The covalently modified compounds showed increased solubility and membrane permeability. '.
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i didn't read the mitochondria part of the report, i think that is not really relevant (though may marginally be). basically he is saying, 'hey, i can do all these modifications to this retigabine molecule, and it could be useful in the current tinnitus research using this drug, as well as this other mitochondria research that uses this drug'. It is important in that he is providing researchers more molecules to experiment with.
It remains to be seen if a drug can be made to specifically target the auditory cortex (I am skeptical). the changes made to this drug are basically making it more/less potent via selectivity of Kv7.2/3 channels, clearance rate, increased permeability, etc.
but since Kv7.2/3 are still widely distributed throughout the brain, i don't see how this would reduce the side effects of the drug (if it is more potent to the auditory cortex, it will be equally potent to the other areas of the brain we don't particularly want it to go). let's see how tinnitus research with these compounds will shake out. if it is the case that the compounds won't be selective to the auditory cortex, maybe increasing some other aspects of their effects will yield better results for tinnitus. i'd say overall this is great news on the research front for tinnitus. anyone else have thoughts on this?