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Curcumin reduces the expression of Bcl-2 by upregulating miR-15a and miR-16 in MCF-7 cells

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Abstract

The medicinal properties of curcumin are well documented in Indian and Chinese systems of medicine, which refer to its wide use in the treatment of some diseases. It has shown to have anti-carcinogenic properties and is known to prevent tumor development in some cancers. In our study, we confirmed that the expression of miR-15a and miR-16 was upregulated and that of Bcl-2 was downregulated in curcumin-treated MCF-7 cells. Silencing miR-15a and miR-16 by specific inhibitors restored the expression of Bcl-2. Thus, we concluded that curcumin can reduce the expression of Bcl-2 by upregulating the expression of miR-15a and miR-16 in MCF-7 cells.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.30872400).

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Correspondence to Jifeng Sun or Yong Zhang.

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Jie Yang, Yunxin Cao, and Jifeng Sun have contributed equally to this work.

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12032_2009_9344_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Supplementary Fig. 1 The expression of Bcl-2 was downregulated in SKBR-3 and Bcap-37 cells treated with curcumin. SKBR-3 and Bcap-37 cells were treated with 60 μmol l−1 curcumin for 24 h. Bcl-2 level was assayed by western blot. Equal amounts of total cellular protein (50 μg) were resolved by 10% sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS–PAGE), and β-actin was used as an internal control (TIFF 80 kb)

12032_2009_9344_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Supplementary Fig. 2 Both miR-15a and miR-16 were downregulated in SKBR-3 and Bcap-37 cells treated with curcumin. SKBR-3 and Bcap-37 cells were treated with 60 μmol l−1 curcumin for 24 h. The expression of miR-15a (a) and miR-16 (b) was tested by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Relative expression levels of each mature miRNA were normalized to U6 expression levels (TIFF 1436 kb)

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Yang, J., Cao, Y., Sun, J. et al. Curcumin reduces the expression of Bcl-2 by upregulating miR-15a and miR-16 in MCF-7 cells. Med Oncol 27, 1114–1118 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-009-9344-3

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