Hodgkin's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Hodgkin's Disease, including details on causes, cancer, lymphoma, stages, symptoms.

Curcumin induces cell-arrest and apoptosis in association with the inhibition of constitutively active NF-kappaB and STAT3 pathways in Hodgkin's lymphoma cells.

Mackenzie GG, Queisser N, Wolfson ML, Fraga CG, Adamo AM, Oteiza PI

Department of Nutrition, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.

Although treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) with a multi-drug approach has been very successful, its toxicity becomes evident after several years as secondary malignancies and cardiovascular disease. Therefore, the current goal in HL treatment is to find new therapies that specifically target the deregulated signaling cascades, such as NF-kappaB and STAT3, which cause Hodgkin and Reed-Sternberg (H-RS) cell proliferation and resistance of apoptosis. Based on the above information, we investigated the capacity of curcumin to inhibit NF-kappaB and STAT3 in H-RS cells, characterizing the functional consequences. Curcumin is incorporated into H-RS cells and acts inhibiting both NF-kappaB and STAT3 activation, leading to a decreased expression of proteins involved in cell proliferation and apoptosis, e.g. Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, cFLIP, XIAP, c-IAP1, survivin, c-myc and cyclin D1. Interestingly, curcumin caused cell cycle arrest in G2-M and a significant reduction (80-97%) in H-RS cell viability. Furthermore, curcumin triggered cell death by apoptosis, as evidenced by the activation of caspase-3 and caspase-9, changes in nuclear morphology and phosphatidylserine translocation. The above findings provide a mechanistic rationale for the potential use of curcumin as a therapeutic agent for patients with HL.

Published 30 April 2008 in Int J Cancer, 123(1): 56-65.
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