The Effects Of Curcumin On The Proliferation, Apoptosis And Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition Of Pancreatic Cancer Cells

Objective Pancreatic cancer, one of the digestive malignancies, has strong characteristics of invasion, metastasis, and radio-chemotherapy resistance. Curcumin is a natural botanical polyphenol derived from rhizomes of Curcuma, which has various pharmacological effects of anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-tumor and enhance radio-chemotherapy sensitivity. We observe the effects of Curcumin on the cell proliferation, apoptosis and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in human pancreatic cancer cell line PANC-1, to investigate the possible mechanisms of induction of apoptosis and inhibition of invasion and metastasis of pancreatic cancer, in order to explore whether Curcumin is able to become the potential theraputic drugs.Methods First, CCK-8and flow cytometry methods were used to detect the rates of proliferation and apoptosis of PANC-1cells which were incubated with Curcumin, respectively. The expression of apoptosis related genes was messured by the methods of Real-time PCR and Western blot. Next, the EMT markers of PANC-1, AsPC-1, BxPC-3cells were determined by Western blot, to further observe the effect of Curcumin on EMT of TGF-B1-induced PANC-1cells. Results The results of CCK-8and flow cytometry showed that, Curcumin can inhibit the proliferation and promote the apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cell line PANC-1in a dose-dependent manner. Real-time PCR and Western blot displayed that, Curcumin can enhanced the expression of Caspases family genes and Bax gene in PANC-1cells, especially in Caspase-3and Caspase-9. In addition, Western blot indicated that, the mesenchymal phynotype of PANC-1cells was the most significant, which was the most poorly differentiated tumor cell of the above three cell lines. TGF-β1can stimulate PANC-1cells to present the typical morphological change of EMT. It further explained that Curcumin might have blocked the EMT effects of PANC-1cells from RNA and protein level.Conclusions Curcumin can strongly suppress the proliferation and promote the apotosis of pancreatic cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner, and the underlying mechanisms of apotosis may be dominated by the intrinsic apoptotic pathway that Caspase-9starts to activate Caspase-3gene and promote the apoptosis process. The potential ability of invisive metastasis of PANC-1cells which has the most notable mesenchymal phynotype has more strong, Curcumin can block the process of EMT in TGF-β1induced PANC-1cells, thus reduce the propability of invasion and metastasis. Therefore, it is concluded that Curcumin may become a potential anti-cancer drug on pancreatic cancer cells.