The Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3) pharmacological targeting is regarded as a prospective approach to treat cancer, autoimmune disorders, or inflammatory diseases. We have developed a series of reporters of the STAT3, NF-κB, Nrf2, metal-responsive transcription factor-1 (MTF-1), and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) transcriptional activation in human monocyte-macrophage line THP-1. The reporter lines were employed to test a set of hydrazide-hydrazones as potential STAT3 inhibitors. A hydrazide-hydrazone library composed of 70 binary combinations of 7 carbonyl and 10 hydrazide components, including a STAT3 inhibitor clinical drug nifuroxazide, has been assembled and screened by the reporters. For the library as a whole, significant correlations between responses of the STAT3 and NF-κB or the STAT3 and HIF-1α reporters in THP-1 monocytes were found. For selected inhibitory combinations, respective hydrazide-hydrazones have been prepared and tested individually. The most potent 2-acetylpyridine 4-chlorobenzoylhydrazone exhibited the STAT3 inhibitory potential significantly exceeding that of nifuroxazide (ED50 2 vs 50 μM respectively) in THP-1 cells. We conclude that insulated reporter transposons could be a useful tool for drug discovery applications.
A simple, rapid, sensitive and inexpensive method has been developed for the determination of trace amounts of palladium(II) using 3,4-dihydroxybenzaldehydeisonicotinoylhydrazone (3,4-DHBINH). The metal ion gives a yellow colored complex with 3,4-DHBINH in acetate buffer of pH 3.0 with 1:1 (metal: ligand) composition. The complex shows maximum absorption at 380 nm. Beer’s law is obeyed in the range 0.5-20.0 ppm of Pd(II). The molar absorptivity, Sandell’s sensitivity and detection limit were found to be 0.53×104L mol-1cm-1, 0.02 μg cm-2and 0.0948 μg mL-1, respectively. The correlation coefficient and regression coefficient of the Pd(II)-3,4-DHBINH complex were 1.08 and 0.04 respectively. Major cations and anions did not show any interference. Anti-microbial activity of the Pd(II)-3,4-DHBINH has been studied. The developed method has been successfully applied to the analysis of Pd(II) in spiked samples. Comparing the results with those obtained using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer tested the validity of the method