With the purpose of creating a multifunctional drug for gastric cancer treatment, a novel all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) conjugate with podophyllotoxin (PPT) was designed and synthesized, and its in vitro antiproliferative activity was evaluated against human gastric cancer cell lines using CCK-8 assay. The conjugate, P-A, exhibited significant anticancer activity against MKN-45 and BGC-823 cells with IC50 values of 0.419 ± 0.032 and 0.202 ± 0.055 μM, respectively. Moreover, P-A efficiently triggered cell cycle arrest and induced apoptosis in MKN-45 and BGC-823 cells due to modulation of cell cycle arrest- (CDK1, CDK2, CyclinA and CyclinB1) and apoptosis- (cleaved caspase-3, -8 and -9) related proteins, respectively. Further mechanism studies revealed that P-A could increase the expression levels of RARα and RARβ, and decrease the level of RARγ in MKN-45 and BGC-823 cells. Finally, P-A inhibited the ERK1/2 and AKT signaling in the above two cancer cell lines. More importantly, the underlying mechanisms of P-A were similar to those of precursor PPT but different with the other precursor ATRA. Together, the conjugate P-A was a promising candidate for the potential treatment of human gastric cancer.
Two kinds of novel pyrazole derivatives containing isatins, total of 12 target compounds, were prepared from 4-hydroxyacetophenone via addition, cyclization, substitution, hydrazinolysis and condensation, which were characterized by 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR and HRMS. The anti-neoplastic activity of target molecules was evaluated against human non-small cell lung cancer cell line A549 using cell counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay. The data showed that several compounds possessed potential anticancer effect. Among them, N'-(3-imino-6-chloroindole-2-one)-1-benzyl-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1H-pyrazole-5-carbohydrazide (7e) and N'-(3-imino-6-bromoindole-2-one)-1-benzyl-3-(4-methoxyphenyl)-1H-pyrazole-5-carbohydrazide (7f) exhibited IC 50 values of 30.41 and 29.69 μmol/L, respectively. Flow cytometry showed that compound 7f could induce apoptosis of A549 cells, reduce the mitochondrial membrane potential, but have no effect on the cell cycle. Those data indicated that the anti-proliferative activity of molecule 7f was mediated by apoptosis-dependent mechanism involving the mitochondrial pathway in A549 cells.
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