Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Curcumin inhibits gastric cancer growth via down-regulation of zinc finger protein, ZNF139

Heng Xu¹, Wenhui Yu², Wenbo Yu³, Meijun Zhang², Yingying Ma², Duoxiang Wu², Qifan Zhang⁴

¹Department of Oncology, The Forth Clinical Medical College, Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081; ²Department of Vascular Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Heilongjiang University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150040; ³Department of Clinical Laboratory, Harbin First Hospital, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150070; ⁴Department of OncologyQ94;Surgery, Harbin Medical University Tumor Hospital Harbin, Heilongjiang 150081, China.

For correspondence:- Qifan Zhang Email: axinlang666@sina.com

Accepted: 26 October 2019 Published: 30 November 2019

Citation: Xu H, Yu W, Yu W, Zhang M, Ma Y, Wu D, et al. Curcumin inhibits gastric cancer growth via down-regulation of zinc finger protein, ZNF139. Trop J Pharm Res 2019; 18(11):2355-2361 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v18i11.18

© 2019 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the effect of curcumin on gastric cancer cell proliferation and the mechanism of action involved.

Methods: Viability of gastric cells following curcumin treatment was determined by 3 (4,5 dimethyl thiazol 2 yl) 2,5 diphenyl 2H tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Flow cytometry was used for the assessment of apoptosis induction in SGC 7901 cells. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and western blotting assay were used for the analysis of Znf139, survivin and Bcl 2 protein expressions.

Results: The results showed that curcumin treatment reduced the viability of gastric cancer cell line SGC 7901 cells at 30 µM concentration to 29.67 % after 48 h compared to 99.78 % for control culture. Apoptotic cell population increased significantly (p < 0.05) following treatment with curcumin. Zinc finger protein-139 mRNA and protein expression decreased significantly (p < 0.05) on treatment with curcumin. Furthermore, curcumin suppressed the levels of B cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl 2) and survivin protein. In the mice model of gastric cancer, treatment with 50 mg/kg dose of curcumin inhibited tumor growth and development significantly, compared to the untreated group (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: The results demonstrate that curcumin treatment inhibits gastric cancer cell proliferation via down-regulation of zinc finger protein-139. It also suppresses tumor growth in mice. Therefore, curcumin is a promising gastric cancer inhibitor and should be further investigated for the management of gastric cancer.

Keywords: Curcumin, Finger protein, Survivin, Gastric cancer, Inflammation, Anti-oxidant