Design, synthesis and evaluation of anti-proliferative activity of 2-aryl-4-aminoquinazoline derivatives as EGFR inhibitors

A class of 2-aryl-4-aminoquinazoline derivatives (7a-7j, 8a-8h, 9a-9h and 10a-10k) were designed, synthesized and evaluated as EGFR inhibitors. The anti-proliferative activity of compounds in vitro showed that compound 9e was considered to be a promising derivative. Compared with the lead compound Angew2017-7634-1, 9e exhibited excellent inhibitory activity against A549, NCI-H460 and H1975 cell lines, with IC50 values of 14.33 ± 1.16 μM, 17.81 ± 1.25 μM and 13.41 ± 1.14 μM, respectively. Moreover, 9e could effectively inhibit against Ba/F3-EGFRDel19/T790M/C797S cell lines. In the kinase experiment, the most promising compound 9e exhibited excellent enzymatic inhibitory activity and selectivity for EGFRL858R/T790M, with an IC50 value of 0.74 μM. Further activity studies showed that 9e could not only induce remarkable cell-apoptosis of A549, but also block A549 cell lines in S-phase in a concentration-dependent manner. Furthermore, molecular docking study revealed the binding mode of 9e. All in all, we analyzed the structure-activity relationship of the target compounds, and explored their mechanism of action.