Malignant gliomas are the most common brain tumors, with generally dismal prognosis, early clinical deterioration and high mortality. Recently, 2-aminoquinoline scaffold derivatives have shown pronounced activity in central nervous system disorders. We herein reported a series of 2-aminoquinoline-3-carboxamides as novel non-alkylator anti-glioblastoma agents. The synthesized compounds showed comparable activity to cisplatin against glioblastoma cell line U87 MG in vitro. Among them, we found that 6a displayed good inhibitory activity against A172 and U118 MG glioblastoma cell lines and induced cell cycle arrest in the G2/M phase and apoptosis in U87 MG by flow cytometry analysis. Additionally, 6a displayed low cytotoxicity to several normal human cell lines. In silico study showed 6a had promising physicochemical properties and was predicted to cross the blood–brain barrier. Moreover, preliminary structure–activity relationships are also investigated, shedding light on further modifications towards more potent agents on this series of compounds. Our results suggest this compound has a promising potential as an anti-glioblastoma agent with a differential effect between tumor and non-malignant cells.

恶性胶质瘤是最常见的脑肿瘤，预后一般较差，临床恶化较早，死亡率较高。最近，2-氨基喹啉支架衍生物在中枢神经系统疾病中显示出显着的活性。我们在此报道了一系列 2-氨基喹啉-3-羧酰胺作为新型非烷化剂抗胶质母细胞瘤药物。合成的化合物在体外对胶质母细胞瘤细胞系 U87 MG 显示出与顺铂相当的活性。其中，我们发现6a对A172和U118 MG胶质母细胞瘤细胞系表现出良好的抑制活性，并通过流式细胞术分析诱导细胞周期停滞在G2/M期和U87 MG细胞凋亡。此外，6a对几种正常人细胞系显示出低细胞毒性。计算机研究表明，6a具有良好的理化特性，预计可以穿过血脑屏障。此外，还研究了初步的结构-活性关系，为进一步修饰这一系列化合物的更有效的试剂提供了启示。我们的研究结果表明，这种化合物具有作为抗胶质母细胞瘤药物的巨大潜力，在肿瘤细胞和非恶性细胞之间具有不同的作用。