Objective: Curcumin has been showed anti-inflammation and anti-cancer effect in various cancer cells such as lung cancer, breast cancer, and so on. However the pro-apoptosis effect and the mechanism of curcumin in ovarian cell is still not very clear. In this study, the authors demonstrated that curcumin induced human SKOV3 cell apoptosis and explored the underlying mechanism concerning Rho A/Rho-kinase pathway.
Materials and methods: Human SKOV3 cell was performed with MTT assay to measure the cell viability with curcumin. The cell was treatment with 15 microM or 30 microM curcumin and flow cytometry. Cell apoptosis analysis was performed to measure the cell apoptosis level. In order to explore the mechanism concerning pro-apoptosis activity of curcumin, the cells were pre-treatment with Y-27632, a specific Rho-kinase inhibitor, before curcumin was added. Then the expression of activated caspase-3 and Rho A, Rho-kinase was detected by western blot.
Results: Treatment with 15 microM or 30 microM curcumin significantly promoted the apoptosis of SKOV3 cell (p < 0.05) and the apoptosis rate is dose-dependent. Curcumin also activated the expression of Rho A and Rho-kinase in a dose-dependent effect. When pre-treatment with Y-27632, the expression of activated caspase-3 was significantly decreased compared to the group without Y-27632 pre-treatment (p < 0.05).
Conclusions: Curcumin induced human SKOV3 cell apoptosis in a dose-dependent effect. The pro-apoptosis effect of curcumin is partly mediated via the activation of Rho A/Rho-kinase signal pathway. This may help to further clarify the mechanisms of curcumin in ovarian cancer therapy.