BioCentury
ARTICLE | Translation in Brief

New high for cannabinoids

Consortium seeks to clear up contradictory data from CNR2 agonists

February 2, 2017 10:41 PM UTC

A consortium of academic and industry scientists have joined forces to help separate the signal from the noise in translational studies of the cannabinoid CB2 receptor (CNR2) by benchmarking the 18 most commonly used agonists against an extensive battery of molecular pharmacology tests. The findings, described last month in Nature Communications, identified reagents least likely to exhibit off-target effects and recommended three as best suited for drug discovery research.

CNR2 activation is widely regarded as a promising strategy for pain and inflammation, with at least five agonists in the clinic and at least eight more in discovery and preclinical development. But, according to study author Pal Pacher, a senior investigator at NIH’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the literature on CNR2 agonists in preclinical and clinical studies is littered with contradictory findings due to frequent off-target stimulation of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor (CNR1)...