Study on functions and mechanism of curcumin in inducing gastric carcinoma BGC apoptosis

Objective: discuss the biological function and regulation mechanism of curcumin in promoting human gastric carcinoma BGC-823 apoptosis.

Methods: Conventional in virto culture in logarithmic phase gastric carcinoma BGC-823 cells; cells are divided into four groups: control group, low treatment group, middle treatment group and high treatment group, with curcumin concentration being 0 mg/L, 5 mg/L, 10 mg/L, and 20 mg/L, respectively. 24 hours after curcumin is treated, cell proliferation level and apoptosis rate are measured with MTT colorimetry and flow cytometry, Bax, Bcl-2 protein expression is measured with immunohistochemistry; mRNA of Caspase-3 is tested by means of PCR.

Results: MTT test indicates that curcumin can inhibit human gastric carcinoma BGC-823 cell proliferation, showing concentration dependency; flow cytometry shows that curcumin can effectively induce apoptosis, showing concentration dependency, where the apoptosis rate is 48.3% 24 hours after 20 mg/L curcumin is treated; immunohistochemistry test shows that curcumin treatment enables Bax expression level in human gastric carcinoma BGC-823 cells to go up, meanwhile, the Bcl-2 protein expression level to go down, besides, the mRNA expression level of Caspase-3 in cells increases through induction of curcumin.

Conclusions: Curcumin has obvious inhibitory effect on human gastric carcinoma BGC-823 cell proliferation, showing concentration dependency to promote apoptosis. Such biological effect may be associated with activating Caspase-3 signal channel by activating Bax protein expression and inhibiting Bcl-2 protein. This study lays an important foundation for further discussing the mechanism of curcumin in inducing human gastric carcinoma BGC-823 apoptosis.