Synthesis and biological evaluation of 3-aryl-4-indolyl-maleimides as potent mutant isocitrate dehydrogenase-1 inhibitors

A series of 3-aryl-4-indolylmaleimide IDH1/R132H inhibitors with a novel structure was obtained by high-throughput screening and structure-based optimization. Most compounds such as 7a, 7d, 7h, 7i, 7k and 7o showed high inhibitory effects on IDH1/R132H and were highly selective against IDH1/WT, IDH2/WT, GDH, GK, and FBP. Evaluation of the biological activities and function at cellular level showed that compounds 7h, 7i and 7k could effectively suppress the production of 2-hydroxyglutaric acid in U87MG cells expressing IDH1/R132H. Additionally, 7h could reversed the differentiation block of the myeloid leukemic cell line, TF-1, caused by the overexpression of IDH1/R132H. We also explore the structure-activity relationship based on the experimental data, with an attempt to pave the way for future studies.