Curcumin Inhibits Cell Growth And Migratory Behaviors Of Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cells

Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common type of liver cancer with poor prognosis. There isgrowing body of data evaluating the antitumor activity of Curcumin in different tumor types. Theaim of current study was to explore the effect of curcumin in 2 and 3 dimensional models of Huh 7.Huh 7 were cultured and maintained in DMEM media. MTT assay was employed to evaluate theviability of the cells. The cytotoxicity of curcumin was investigated in 3 dimensional cell culturemodel (spheroid). Invasion assay was used to assess the invasive behavior of Huh 7 cells before andafter treatment with curcumin. The expression levels of some genes involved in apoptosis,migration, as well as the markers of NF-kB pathway, were evaluated by real-time quantitative RTPCR.Our data showed that curcumin suppressed cell growth via modulation of the NF-kB pathway.We observed tumor shrinkage after 5 days in Huh 7 cells treated with curcumin at IC50 and 5xIC50values. Curcumin was able to decrease the invasiveness of Huh 7. We demonstrate the antitumoractivity of curcumin in a liver cancer cell line, supporting further investigations on the role of thisnovel anticancer agent in hepatocellular carcinoma.