Nutrients 2017, 9(2), 109; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9020109
Inhibition of Cell Survival by Curcumin Is Associated with Downregulation of Cell Division Cycle 20 (Cdc20) in Pancreatic Cancer Cells
1
Department of Oncology, Guizhou People’s Hospital, Guizhou 550002, China
2
Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 22 November 2016 / Revised: 19 January 2017 / Accepted: 25 January 2017 / Published: 4 February 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nutrition and Pancreatic Health)
Abstract
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive human tumors in the United States. Curcumin, a polyphenol derived from the Curcuma longa plant, has been reported to exert its antitumor activity in pancreatic cancer. However, the molecular mechanisms of curcumin-mediated tumor suppressive function have not been fully elucidated. In the current study, we explore whether curcumin exhibits its anti-cancer function through inhibition of oncoprotein cell division cycle 20 (Cdc20) in pancreatic cancer cells. We found that curcumin inhibited cell growth, enhanced apoptosis, induced cell cycle arrest and retarded cell invasion in pancreatic cancer cells. Moreover, we observed that curcumin significantly inhibited the expression of Cdc20 in pancreatic cancer cells. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that overexpression of Cdc20 enhanced cell proliferation and invasion, and abrogated the cytotoxic effects induced by curcumin in pancreatic cancer cells. Consistently, downregulation of Cdc20 promoted curcumin-mediated anti-tumor activity. Therefore, our findings indicated that inhibition of Cdc20 by curcumin could be useful for the treatment of pancreatic cancer patients. View Full-TextKeywords:
curcumin; Cdc20; pancreatic cancer; growth; invasion
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Zhang, Y.; Xue, Y.-B.; Li, H.; Qiu, D.; Wang, Z.-W.; Tan, S.-S. Inhibition of Cell Survival by Curcumin Is Associated with Downregulation of Cell Division Cycle 20 (Cdc20) in Pancreatic Cancer Cells. Nutrients 2017, 9, 109.
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