Why would one drug work when another very closely related drug had no effect? For example, why would nortriptyline be effective in treating one of its indications when amitriptyline wasn't? The only difference between the two is a missing carbon at the end of the nitrogen.
It's not like enantiomers where one might be more active because of its completely reversed structure.
Other urls found in this thread:
en.wikipedia.org
medlineplus.gov
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
mayoclinic.org
fampra.oxfordjournals.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu
twitter.com
bumpu
The missing carbon makes the molecule bind to its receptor more/less
???
but in this case, the nortriptyline is the active metabolite of the amitriptyline. why would a purer form of the active metabolite have an effect when the prodrug did not?
bump
Because it binds to receptors differently, so with nor you only get nor effects byt with ami you get ami + nor effects.
It literally says this on wikipedia.
doesn't make any sense.
>specific receptor doesn't bind to everything equally
Gee I wonder why it doesn't make sense
Because nortryptyline is a metabolite of amitriptyline, you first have amitriptyline acting on the brain, then as its metabolized you have nortryptyline created, so now you have decreasing levels of amitriptyline and increasing nortryptaline, but you have both because metabolism isnt instant.
When you only take nortryptyline you dont get the effects of amitriptyline.
Wikipedia states this AND has the binding affinities/action on transporters of both drugs, compared
That doesn't answer my question on why the metabolite would be effective when the prodrug that metabolizes into the metabolite doesn't work.
I understand that they bind differently, but unless amitriptylene interferes deconstructively with nortriptylene then I don't understand why nortriptylene on it's own would work when amitriptylene doesn't.