Research has shown that a category of heterocycles, beta-carbolines, act as inverse allosteric agonists on the GABAA receptor. For certain insects, there are heterocycles which can be synthesized to be insecticidal. Thus, it can be hypothesized that a structurally novel beta-carboline can be synthesized to be neurotoxic in which its mechanism of action targets the GABAA receptor. To synthesize beta-carboline, a starting reagent, yohimbanone, was produced by reflux of ninhydrin and L-tryptophan methyl ester followed by recrystallization using methanol. Thereafter, copper (II) acetate was added to yohimbanone and heated. Analysis using 1H 1-D NMR and IR spectroscopy determined that beta-carboline was yielded. The synthesized beta-carboline and derivatives prepared from this beta-carboline will be analyzed to determine its impact on the GABAA receptor.

Synthesis of potentially neurotoxic and structurally novel heterocycles

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