Design, synthesis and evaluation of 2-(2-oxoethyl) pyrimidine-5-carboxamide derivatives as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors

A novel series of 2-(2-oxoethyl)pyrimidine-5-carboxamide derivatives were designed, synthesized and evaluated as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Biological activity results demonstrated that compound 10q showed the best inhibitory activity against AChE (IC50 = 0.88 +/- 0.78 mu M), which was better than that of Huperzine-A, and its inhibitory effect on BuChE was weak (IC50 = 10.0 +/- 1.30 mu M), which indicated that compound 10q was a dominant AChE inhibitor. In addition, the result of molecular docking study displayed that 10q could simultaneously bind to CAS and PAS sites of AChE, which was consistent with the mixed inhibition mode shown by the enzymatic kinetics study of 10q. Furthermore, the molecular properties of the target compounds were predicted online using the molinspiration server and pkCSM, The results exhibited that compound 10q had drug-like properties that satisfied the Lipinski's rule of five. Based on the bioactivity and molecular properties, compound 10q for further development was valuable.