Two small molecule compounds, LLL12 and FLLL32, exhibit potent inhibitory activity on STAT3 in human rhabdomyosarcoma cells.

Signal transducers and activators of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling is persistently activated in many types of cancer cells, and represents a valid target for anticancer drug design. However, few reports have described the constitutive activation of STAT3 in human sarcoma cells. In this study, we demonstrate that the STAT3 signaling pathway is constitutively activated in human rhabodomyosarcoma cells (RH28, RH30, and RD2). We also investigated the inhibitory effects of two newly developed small molecules, LLL12 and FLLL32, on the STAT3 signaling pathway in human rhabodomyosarcoma cells. Both LLL12 and FLLL32 downregulated STAT3 constitutively and interleukin-6 (IL-6) stimulated phosphorylated STAT3 (p-STAT3). The inhibition of STAT3 via LLL12 and FLLL32 was confirmed by the inhibition of STAT3 DNA binding activity. The downstream targets of STAT3, cyclin D1, Bcl-xL, and survivin were also downregulated by LLL12 and FLLL 32 at both messenger RNA and protein levels. The potency of LLL12 and FLLL32 to inhibit proliferation/viability in human rhabodomyosarcoma cells (RH28, RH30, and RD2) was higher than that of the 5 previously reported Janus kinase 2 (JAK2)/STAT3 inhibitors (LLL3, WP1066, Stattic, S3I-201, and AG490) and curcumin. Thus, in this study, we investigated the inhibitory effects of two STAT3 inhibitors, LLL12 and FLLL32, on the STAT3 signaling pathway in human rhabodomyosarcoma cells; we also demonstrated their higher potency in inhibiting proliferation on human rhabodomyosarcoma cells as compared to other five JAK2/STAT3 inhibitors and curcumin.