Anticancer Effects of Curcuma C20-Dialdehyde against Colon and Cervical Cancer Cell Lines

Background: Recent attention on chemotherapeutic intervention against cancer has been focused ondiscovering and developing phytochemicals as anticancer agents with improved efficacy, low drug resistanceand toxicity, low cost and limited adverse side effects. In this study, we investigated the effects of CurcumaC20-dialdehyde on growth, apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in colon and cervical cancer cell lines. Materials and
Methods: Antiproliferative, apoptosis induction, and cell cycle arrest activities of Curcuma C20-dialdehydewere determined by WST cell proliferation assay, flow cytometric Alexa fluor 488-annexin V/propidium iodide(PI) staining and PI staining, respectively.
Results: Curcuma C20 dialdehyde suppressed the proliferation ofHCT116, HT29 and HeLa cells, with IC50 values of 65.4±1.74 μg/ml, 58.4±5.20 μg/ml and 72.0±0.03 μg/ml,respectively, with 72 h exposure. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that percentages of early apoptotic cellsincreased in a dose-dependent manner upon exposure to Curcuma C20-dialdehyde. Furthermore, exposure tolower concentrations of this compound significantly induced cell cycle arrest at G1 phase for both HCT116 andHT29 cells, while higher concentrations increased sub-G1 populations. However, the concentrations used in thisstudy could not induce cell cycle arrest but rather induced apoptotic cell death in HeLa cells.
Conclusions: Ourfindings suggest that the phytochemical Curcuma C20-dialdehyde may be a potential antineoplastic agent forcolon and cervical cancer chemotherapy and/or chemoprevention. Further studies are needed to characterizethe drug target or mode of action of the Curcuma C20-dialdehyde as an anticancer agent.