Effects of curcumin on proliferation,cell cycle status and apoptosis of human hepatocellular carcinoma SMMC-7721 cells

Objective To investigate the effects of curcumin on proliferation,cell cycle status and apopto-sis of human hepatocellular carcinoma SMMC-7721 cells in vitro.Methods The human hepatocellular carcino-ma SMMC-7721 cells was cultured to logarithm growing period and treated by curcumin with different concen-tration and different time.The inhibition rates of cells were detected by MTT assay;The cell cycle status and the apoptosis rates were tested by flow cytometry.Results MTT method revealed that curcumin could inhibit the proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma SMMC-7721 cells in a dose-and time-dependent manner.The tumor cell apoptotic rate in curcumin group was significantly higher than that in control group.Furthermore,flow cytom-etry showed that the apoptotic ratio of curcumin group was increased obviously with the adding up of curcumin than that of control group,yet curcumin did not produce cycle arrest.Conclusions Curcumin on human hepato-cellular carcinoma SMMC-7721 cells may obviously inhibit the cells proliferation and induced apoptosis,but it did not produce cycle arrest.