curcumin and Hemangioma--Capillary

Curcumin has been used as an alternative medicine for the treatment of infantile hemangiomas (IHs); however, the mechanism underlying the effectiveness of curcumin in IHs remains largely unclear.. In this study, we isolated primary human hemangioma endothelial cells (HemECs) from fresh surgical specimens of 3 patients. We treated HemECs by curcumin and investigated the alterations in proliferative and apoptotic signaling pathways with cell counting kit-8, flow cytometry, western blotting, immunofluorescence, and real-time polymerase chain reaction.. We found that curcumin potently inhibited proliferation in HemECs, achieving low-micromolar IC50 (the half maximal inhibitory concentration) value. We also observed that treatment with curcumin induced apoptosis in HemECs, as evidenced by positively Annexin-V-FITC staining, caspase-3 activation, and cleavage of poly(adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase (PARP) in the treated cells. Moreover, we showed that curcumin suppressed the expression of antiapoptotic protein myeloid cell leukemia-1 (MCL-1), hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF).Altogether, our study suggests that the effectiveness of curcumin in IHs may be associated with its potent antiproliferative and apoptotic activities in HemECs.

Topics: Antineoplastic Agents; Apoptosis; Cell Proliferation; Child, Preschool; Curcumin; Down-Regulation; Endothelial Cells; Hemangioma, Capillary; Humans; Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1, alpha Subunit; Male; Myeloid Cell Leukemia Sequence 1 Protein; Neoplastic Syndromes, Hereditary; Signal Transduction; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A