Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Effect of curcumin on the viability of SKOV3 cells and its probable mechanism of action

Wang Dan¹, Xu Cheng², Zhang Fei-Fei¹, Zeng Bao-Jin¹

¹Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, Taizhou Hospital of Zhejiang Province affiliated to Wenzhou Medical University, Taizhou; ²Pathology Department, Enze Hospital, Taizhou Enze Medical Center (Group). Taizhou, China.

For correspondence:- Zeng Bao-Jin Email: zengbaojin@aliyun.com

Accepted: 22 March 2021 Published: 30 April 2021

Citation: Dan W, Cheng X, Fei-Fei Z, Bao-Jin Z. Effect of curcumin on the viability of SKOV3 cells and its probable mechanism of action. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(4):767-770 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i4.15

© 2021 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 study the influence of curcumin on the survival of SKOV3 cells and the potential molecular mechanism of action.

Methods: SKOV3 cell proliferation was measured using MTT assay. Gene expression levels were assayed using QRT-PCR assay, while protein expression was determined with western blotting.

Results: Cell viability was reduced by curcumin at doses of 20, 40 and 80 µM (p < 0.05) in a dose-based fashion. Protein expression levels of Bax, caspase-3 and caspase-9 were upregulated by curcumin, while Bcl-2 protein level was downregulated (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: These results demonstrate that curcumin inhibits cell proliferation by promoting the protein expressions of pro-apoptotic genes (Bax, caspase-3 and caspase-9) while suppressing Bcl-2 protein level. Therefore, curcumin might be a novel alternative therapy for ovarian cancer.

Keywords: Curcumin, SKOV3, Apoptosis, Ovarian cancer