Amine reuptake blockers

The positive effects of the monoamine oxidase inhibitor isoniazid and the amine reuptake blocker imipramine were both discovered by accident. Isoniazid was being used as an antitubercular drug when patients reports of elation led Nathan Kline to test and to demonstrate its antidepressant power. Ronald Kuhn had synthesized imipramine, a tricyclic molecule, as a possible me-too analog of chlorpromazine. When Kuhn found that it had little or no antipsychotic potential, he tried it out on depressives, and voila They got better. After a while, that is. As with isoniazid, imip-ramine s antidepressant action was evident only after one to four weeks of administration. 

All TCAs are either secondary- or tertiary-amines of a dibenzazepine nucleus (Fig. 20.3), and they all inhibit neuronal reuptake of noradrenaline and/or 5-HT but are much less potent as dopamine reuptake blockers. A common claim is that secondary amines (e.g. desipramine) are preferential inhibitors of noradrenaline uptake whereas the tertiary derivatives (e.g. imipramine, doxepin and amitryptyline) preferentially inhibit 5-HT uptake. However, when Richelson and Pfenning (1984) actually compared the effects of a wide range of antidepressants on the synaptosomal uptake of [ H]monoamines in vitro, and compared their A s, instead of merely ranking /C50S collected from different studies, they found that tertiary- and secondary-substituted compounds were equi-potent inhibitors of [ H]noradrenaline uptake. Moreover, all the TCAs turned out to be more potent inhibitors of [ H]noradrenaline than of [ H]5-HT uptake. Tertiary amines are even less convincing inhibitors of 5-HT reuptake in vivo, because any such action is diminished by their metabolism to secondary amines (e.g. imipramine to desipramine amitriptyline to nortriptyline). Only clomipramine retains any appreciable 5-HT uptake blocking activity in vivo with (an unimpressive) five-fold selectivity for 5-HT versus noradrenaline. 

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