Ke-qing Ouyang

Curcumin, a natural compound extracted from rhizomes of curcuma Curcuma species, has been shown to possess po-tent anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor and anti-oxidative proper-ties. However, the mechanism of action of the compound remains poorly understood. In this report, we have analyzed the effects of curcumin on the cell proliferation of Burkitt’s lymphoma Raji cells. The results demonstrated that curcumin could effectively inhibit the growth of Raji cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Further studies indicated that cur-cumin treatment resulted in apoptosis of cells. Biochemical analysis showed that the expression of Bax, Bid and cyto-chrome C were up-regulated, while the expression of onco-gene c-Myc was down regulated after curcumin treatment. Furthermore, poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) cleavage was induced by the compound. Interestingly, the anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 expression was not significantly changed in Raji cells after curcumin treatment. These results suggested that the mechanism of action of curcumin was to induce mi-tochondrial damage and therefore led to Raji cell apoptosis. We further investigated the áå=îáîç effects of curcumin on the growth of xenograft tumors in nude mice. The results showed that curcumin could effectively inhibit tumor growth in the xenograft mouse model. The overall results showed that cur-cumin could suppress the growth of Burkitt’s lymphoma cells in both áå=îáíêç and áå=îáîç systems