Asia Naz

Decitabine nanoconjugate sensitizes human glioblastoma cells to temozolomide.

In this study, we developed and characterized a delivery system for the epigenetic demethylating drug, decitabine, to sensitize temozolomide-resistant human glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cells to alkylating chemotherapy. A poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) based nanoconjugate was fabricated to encapsulate decitabine and achieved a better therapeutic response in GBM cells than that with the free drug. After synthesis, the highly efficient uptake process and intracellular dynamics of this nanoconjugate were monitored by single-molecule fluorescence tools. Our experiments demonstrated that, under an acidic pH due to active glycolysis in cancer cells, the PLGA-PEG nanovector could release the conjugated decitabine at a faster rate, after which the hydrolyzed lactic acid and glycolic acid would further acidify the intracellular microenvironment, thus providing positive feedback to increase the effective drug concentration and realize growth inhibition. In temozolomide-resistant GBM cells, decitabine can potentiate the cytotoxic DNA alkylation by counteracting cytosine methylation and reactivating tumor suppressor genes, such as p53 and p21. Owing to the excellent internalization and endolysosomal escape enabled by the PLGA-PEG backbone, the encapsulated decitabine exhibited a better anti-GBM potential than that of free drug molecules. Hence, the synthesized nanoconjugate and temozolomide could act in synergy to deliver a more potent and long-term antiproliferative effect against malignant GBM cells.

Identification of anti-inflammatory and other biological activities of 3-carboxamide, 3-carbohydrazide and ester derivatives of gatifloxacin

BackgroundSeventeen 1,4-dihydroquinoline-3-carboxamide and 1,4-dihydroquinoline-3-carbohydrazide derivatives of gatifloxacin have been prepared with a facile one step synthesis aiming to improve antibacterial, antifungal and immunological activities. The methodology allows the introduction of a variety of substituents such as amines, alcohol, phenol, amides and alkyl halides into the core structure of gatifloxacin.ResultsThe analog N-(3-aminophenyl)-1-cyclopropyl-6-fluoro-8-methoxy-7-(3-methylpiperazin-1-yl)-4-oxo-1,4-dihydroquinoline-3-carboxamide has been identified as a potentially excellent anti-inflammatory agent, which exhibited highly potent effects on the oxidative burst activity of whole blood phagocytes (IC50 <12.5 μg mL-1), neutrophils (IC50 <0.1 μg mL-1) and macrophages phagocytes (IC50 <3.1 μg mL-1) as well as potent T-cell proliferation inhibitory effect (IC50 3.7 μg mL-1) while having comparable antibacterial activity to gatifloxacin. Another analog, 1-cyclopropyl-6-fluoro-8-methoxy-7-(3-methylpiperazin-1-yl)-4-oxo-N-phenyl-1,4-dihydroquinoline-3-carbohydrazide has tremendous T-cell proliferation inhibitory effect IC50 <3.1 μg mL-1 as compared to prednisolone, whereas, 3,5-dihydroxyphenyl1-cyclopropyl-6-fluoro-8-methoxy-7-(3-methylpiperazin-1-yl)-4-oxo-1,4-dihydroquinoline-3-carboxylate and 2-hydroxyphenyl-1-cyclopropyl-6-fluoro-8-methoxy-7-(3-methylpiperazin-1-yl)-4-oxo-1,4-dihydroquinoline-3-carboxylate envision good inhibitory activity on T-cells proliferation (IC50 6.8 & 8.8 μg mL-1 respectively).ConclusionsThe structural modification at carboxylic group has resulted in improved anti-inflammatory activities with comparable antibacterial activity to gatifloxacin. We believe that C3 structural modifications of gatifloxacin are definitely important in bringing major immunomodulatory changes in these compounds.

A RP-HPLC METHOD FOR THE SIMULTANEOUS DETERMINATION OF DILTIAZEM AND QUINOLONES IN BULK, FORMULATIONS AND HUMAN SERUM

High Performance Liquid Chromatographic method was developed and applied for the simultaneous determination of diltiazem and fluoroquinolones in bulk, pharmaceutical formulations and human serum in presence of caffeine as internal standard. A Hiber®, RP-18 column was used with mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile:methanol:water (30:20:50 v/v, pH 3.6) and quantitative evaluation was performed at 230 nm. Suitability of this method for the quantitative determination of the drugs was proved by validation in accordance with the requirements laid down by International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines.The method was selective, precise, accurate and can be used for routine analysis of pharmaceutical preparations, quality control and clinical laboratories.

Synthesis Characterization and Antimicrobial Activities of Azithromycin Metal Complexes

Azithromycin is a well-established antimicrobial agent which has been widely prescribed for the treatment of respiratory tract infections owing to its high efficacy and safety. Various essential metal complexes of azithromycin were synthesized and characterized by techniques as UV, FT-IR, NMR, atomic absorption and elemental analysis. Spectroscopic studies of complexes suggested that the –N(CH3)2 and hydroxyl group of desosamine sugar moiety present in azithromycin has been involved in complexation i.e., azithromycin ligand (L) behaves bidentately for complexation with different metal ions such as Mg (II), Ca (II), Cr (III), Mn (II), Fe (III), Co (II), Ni (II), Cu (II), Zn (II) and Cd (II). These complexes were then subjected to in-vitro antibacterial and antifungal studies against several Gram positive, Gram negative bacteria and fungi. ANOVA studies illustrates that all the tested complexes exhibited significantly mild to moderate antibacterial activity against all bacterial strains and highly significant against fungus C. albican.

CoMFA and CoMSIA studies on a series of fluroquinolone derivatives for potential anti-inflammatory activity

Three-dimensional quantitative structure–activity relationships using CoMFA and CoMSIA were developed for a series of 28 fluroquinolone derivatives for prediction of anti-inflammatory activity. QSAR models with high squared correlation coefficients of up to 0.962 for CoMFA, 0.989 for CoMSIA-I and 0.987 for CoMSIA-II were established. The robustness of the model was confirmed with the help of leave-one-out cross-validation having values of 0.554 for CoMFA, 0.6 for CoMSIA-I and 0.597 for CoMSIA-II, respectively. Theoretical results were in accordance with the experimental data. Developed models highlighted the importance of steric, electrostatic, hydrophobic and donor descriptors for anti-inflammatory activity.

PLGA-PEG nano-delivery system for epigenetic therapy

Efficient delivery of cytidine analogues such as Azacitidine (AZA) into solid tumors constitutes a primary challenge in epigenetic therapies. We developed a di-block nano-vector based on poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) for stabilization of the conjugated AZA under physiological conditions. With equimolar drug content, our nano-conjugate could elicit a better anti-proliferative effect over free drug in breast cancer both in vitro and in vivo, through reactivation of p21 and BRCA1 to restrict cell proliferation. In addition, we applied single-molecule fluorescence tools to characterize the intracellular behavior of the AZA-PLGE-PEG nano-micelles at a finer spatiotemporal resolution. Our results suggest that the nano-micelles could effectively enrich in cancer cells and may not be limited by nucleoside transporters. Afterwards, the internalized nano-micelles exhibit pH-dependent release and resistance to active efflux. Altogether, our work describes a delivery strategy for DNA demethylating agents with nanoscale tunability, providing a cost-effective option for pharmaceutics.