Discovery of novel quinazoline-containing ATR inhibitor for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia.

ATR is a core kinase in the DNA damage response pathway, primarily sensing replication pressure and double strand breaks, initiating cell cycle arrest, DNA repair, and apoptosis programs, and maintaining genomic stability. In this work, we validated that intervention in ATR function might regulate the progression of AML through bioinformatics analysis. And a series of novel ATR inhibitors based on quinazoline moiety were obtained. The promising compound C7 achieved effective enzyme level and cellular level inhibitory activities, and exhibited acceptable liver S9 stability and oral bioavailability, with no high risk of drug-drug interactions. Research on the underlying mechanism indicated that compound C7 could inhibit the development of MOLM-13 through a dual mechanism of rapidly inducing cell apoptosis and exacerbating DNA damage levels. In brief, compound C7 might be a promising candidate or lead compound for the discovery of novel ATR inhibitors and the treatment of AML.