Evaluation of the anti-proliferative activity of three new pyrazole compounds in sensitive and resistant tumor cell lines

Background In previous papers we demonstrated that the activity of short heteroretinoids as anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic compounds was deeply linked to their heterocyclic moiety and that ionone-derived 1,5-pyrazoles had the highest anti-proliferative activity in our preliminary experiments. We then demonstrated the high and pharmacologically significant anti-proliferative and apoptotic activities of the pyrazole compounds 2-(l-(4-chlorophenyl)-lH-pyrazol-5-yl)-5-methoxyphenol (EN12-4) , 5-methoxy-2-(l-(pyridin-2-yl)-lH-pyrazol-5-yl)phenol (EN12-2A) and 2-(5-(4-methoxyphenyl)-lH-pyrazol-l-yl)pyridine (EN7-2) establishing, especially for EN12-2A , a possible mechanism of action involving the cell microtubular system. Methods Here, the anti-proliferative activity of these pyrazole compounds was analyzed in vitro by the MTT assay in six drug-resistant cell lines, five of which were selected after exposure to increasing concentrations of cisplatin (L1210/DDP), doxorubicin (A2780/DX3), 5-fluorouracil (HCT-8/5FU), taxol (A549/T24) and etoposide (MCF-7/VP), and one was obtained by transfection of the ABCG2 membrane transporter (HEK-293/R2). Results Our data show that these compounds have a similar anti-proliferative activity in nearly all resistant and sensitive cell lines, demonstrating their ability to overcome the most common mechanisms of drug resistance with two exceptions regarding the MCF-7/VP cell line over-expressing the ABCC1 (MRP1) transporter, and the MDR1 over-expressing A2780/DX3 cells, with a calculated RI = 3.2 for EN12-2A , relative to their sensitive cellular counterpart. On the other hand, the taxol-resistant A549/T24 cell line showed a significantly increased sensitivity to our compounds. Conclusions Our data suggest that our pyrazole compounds are able to overcome in vitro the most common drug-resistance mechanisms demonstrating a significant anti-proliferative activity and confirming a mechanism of action involving the depolymerization of microtubules.