YH239-EE inhibits the growth of OCI-AML-3 cells with wild type p53 by inhibiting the p53-MDM2 interaction. YH239-EE induces cell cycle arrest and causes potent cell apoptosis via activation of p53 and downstream targets in four AML cells (OCI-AML-3 and MOLM-13 with wt p53, NB4 with p53 mutation, and HL60 with p53 deletion).