KSC-12-192 is a drug that is used in scientific research to study the ú-opioid receptor, where it acts as a biased agonist.
KSC-12-192 preferentially activates G-protein coupling over ò-arrestin 2 recruitment in vitro, an intrinsic activity shared with many other KOR ligands developed to separate KOR-mediated analgesia from accompanying dysphoria.
Compared with most of the known KOR G-protein biased agonists, KSC-12-192 and its parent compound ML138 do not exhibit stereoisomerism.
Out of a range of tested compounds with the same substituted triazole scaffold (see table), KSC-12-192 had the highest reported in vitro potency as a human KOR agonist (EC<sub>50</sub> = 31nM).