Acetylcholinesterase Inhibition of Diversely Functionalized Quinolinones for Alzheimer's Disease Therapy

Int J Mol Sci. 2020 May 30;21(11):3913. doi: 10.3390/ijms21113913.

Abstract

In this communication, we report the synthesis and cholinesterase (ChE)/monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibition of 19 quinolinones (QN1-19) and 13 dihydroquinolinones (DQN1-13) designed as potential multitarget small molecules (MSM) for Alzheimer's disease therapy. Contrary to our expectations, none of them showed significant human recombinant MAO inhibition, but compounds QN8, QN9, and DQN7 displayed promising human recombinant acetylcholinesterase (hrAChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (hrBuChE) inhibition. In particular, molecule QN8 was found to be a potent and quite selective non-competitive inhibitor of hrAChE (IC50 = 0.29 µM), with Ki value in nanomolar range (79 nM). Pertinent docking analysis confirmed this result, suggesting that this ligand is an interesting hit for further investigation.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; ChE/MAO inhibition; contilisant; dihydroquinolinones; docking; quinolinones; synthesis.

MeSH terms

  • Acetylcholinesterase / metabolism
  • Alzheimer Disease / drug therapy*
  • Cholinesterase Inhibitors / pharmacology*
  • Drug Design
  • Drug Evaluation, Preclinical
  • Humans
  • Inhibitory Concentration 50
  • Kinetics
  • Ligands
  • Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
  • Molecular Docking Simulation
  • Monoamine Oxidase / metabolism
  • Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors / pharmacology*
  • Quinolones / pharmacology*
  • Recombinant Proteins / metabolism
  • Structure-Activity Relationship

Substances

  • Cholinesterase Inhibitors
  • Ligands
  • Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors
  • Quinolones
  • Recombinant Proteins
  • Monoamine Oxidase
  • monoamine oxidase A, human
  • Acetylcholinesterase