N-acyl-omega-aminoacid ethanolamides resembling anandamide structure: synthesis and biological evaluation.

Anandamide is a fatty acid amide (FAA), recently identified as a lipid messenger, that plays a role in pain, depression, food intake, memory, and fertility, owing to its interactions with a variety of biological districts, such as endocannabinoid system and vanilloid receptors. Also other saturated FAAs have shown potential therapeutic activities, such as antiobesity properties for stearoylethanolamide or antiinflammatory effects for palmitoylethanolamide. In this way a new series of N-acyl-omega-aminoacid ethanolamides was synthesized to evaluate, whether the insertion of a new carboamidic bond inside the molecule chains may influence the biological activities, other than solubility, of saturated fatty acid amides derivatives.