Autophagy and Apoptosis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Induced by EF25-(GSH)2: A Novel Curcumin Analog
Figure 1
EF25-(GSH)2 inhibited proliferation of tumor cells in vitro.
(A) The structures of curcumin, EF25 and EF25-(GSH)2. (B) a and b, EF25-(GSH)2 showed similar toxicity towards six human tumor cells (BEL-7402, HCT116, HepG2, A549, SMMC-7721 and Hela) (a) and the toxicity of curcumin was much lower than that of EF25-(GSH)2 (b). c, cells were incubated with increasing doses of indicated compounds for 24-, 48-, and 72-h periods and analyzed by MTT assay. The IC50 of each agent at each time period was calculated and compared using SPSS. The IC50 of EF25-(GSH)2 is much lower than that of curcumin and essentially equivalent to that of cisplatin. d, the cytotoxicity of EF25-(GSH)2 to HL-7702 cells was much lower than that of cisplatin and similar to curcumin after 48-hour incubation as determined by MTT assay (*, p<0.01, **, p<0.001). (C) Cells were incubated with 0.5 µmol/L of the indicated compound for 24 h and subsequently allowed to grow into colonies (2 weeks). EF25-(GSH)2 totally inhibited colony formation leading to clean plates, while curcumin and cisplatin did not. Results are representative of three independent experiments.