Antiproliferative effects of curcuphenol, a sesquiterpene phenol

Abstract

Curcuphenol is a sesquiterpene isolated from sponges and plants having several significant biological activities. The present study explored its effect on cell proliferation and apoptosis in Caco-2 human colon cancer cells. It was demonstrated that curcuphenol in concentrations in the range of 29-116 µg/ml inhibited cell proliferation and DNA replication and induced cell death in a dose-dependent manner. The induction of apoptosis was associated with a stimulation of the activity of caspase-3. The findings presented here suggest that curcuphenol has antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic properties.

Fig. 1.

Antiproliferative effect of curcuphenol on colon cancer cells. Cells were treated with different concentrations of curcuphenol for 24 h, and then the cell viability was determined by WST-1 assay. The growth inhibitory activity was calculated as % of inhibition compared with the control.

Fig. 2.

Effect on DNA synthesis after exposure to 29–116 μg/ml of curcuphenol on Caco-2 cells. The values are expressed as % of control and represent means (S.E.) of two separate experiments performed with sextuplicate samples. The absolute thymidine incorporation into DNA of untreated Caco-2 cells was 0.4 fmol/h/10⁶ cells.

Fig. 3.

Effect on apoptosis of different concentrations of curcuphenol on Caco-2 cells after exposure for 6 h. The values represent means of three separate experiments with standard errors depicted by vertical bars, each was done using triplicate samples.

Fig. 4.

Increase of caspase-3 activity induced by curcuphenol in Caco-2 cells. The values represent means (S.E.) of three independent experiments at 6 h of exposure to curcuphenol.