Table 1.

The capacity of curcumin in leukemia treatment.

In vitro/In vivo	Cell line/Animal model	Study design	Molecular taregts	Biological mechanism	Remarks	Refs
In vitro	SHI-1 cells	6.25, 12.5 and 25 μM	MMP-2 MMP-9		Apoptosis induction Suppressing metastasis of tumor cells Down-regulation of MMP-2 and MMP-9	76
				Apoptosis
				Metastasis
In vitro In vivo	HL60 cells	5, 10, 25, and 50 μM	NF-κB	Apoptosis	Apoptosis induction	77
	Xenograft model				Inhibiting NF-κB signaling pathway
In vitro In vivo	K562, MV4-11, HL-60, ML-1, Kasumi-1 and THP-1 cells	3 and 10 μM	DNMT1, p65 and Sp1	Apoptosis and cell progression	Decreased expression levels of DNMT1, p65 and Sp1 Apoptosis stimulation Cell cycle arrest	78
	Mice
In vitro In vivo	K562 and LAMA84 cells CML mouse xenograft	5, 10, 20 and 40 μM	miR-196b	–	miRNA-196b upregulation by curcumin in reducing expression level of Bcr-Abl Reduced tumor size in vivo	79
In vitro In vivo	SUP-B15 cells Mouse model	5, 10, 15 and 20 μM	Akt/mTOR and ABL/STAT5	Apoptosis and proliferation	Apoptosis induction Inhibition of Akt/mTOR and ABL/STAT5 signaling pathways Proliferation inhibition	80
In vitro	SKM-1 and KG1a cells	0–80 μM	Caspase-3 PARP	Apoptosis	Apoptosis induction Upregulation of caspase-3 and mediating cleavage of PARP Survivin protein down-regulation	81
In vitro	HL60, Kasumi, NB4, and KG1 cells	0–40 μM	FoxM1 VEGF MMP-2 MMP-9	Apoptosis	FoxM1 down-regulation by curcumin and subsequent decrease in expression levels of cyclin B1, CDK2, Cdc25B, Bcl-2, survivin, VEGF, MMP-2 and MMP-9 Decreasing survival rate of tumor cells Apoptosis induction	82
In vitro	WEHI-3 cells	0–20 μM	–	Apoptosis ROS production DNA damage	Triggering apoptosis in tumor cells via mitochondrial and endoplasmic reticulum pathways ROS overgeneration DNA damage induction	83
In vitro	K562 cells	0–30 μM	Caspase-3 and -9	Cell cycle arrest Cell death	Cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase Cell death induction via overexpression of caspase-3 and -9	84
In vitro	HL60, K562, MOLT4 and KG1 cells	0–50 μM	DR4 and DR5	–	Enhancing expression level of DR4 and DR5 Down-regulation of Mcl-1, Bcl-xL and XIAP Increasing sensitivity of tumor cells to TRAIL inhibitors	85
In vitro	KG-1 and U937 cells	0–100 μM	VEGF	Apoptosis	Apoptosis induction Decreased proliferation of tumor cells Reduction in expression level of VEGF	86
In vitro	KG-1a, KG-1, and EoL-1 cells	0–50 μg/mL	–	Proliferation	Suppressing proliferation rate of tumor cells	87
In vitro	SUP-B15 cells	10 μM	RAF/MEK/ERK	Autophagy	Induction of RAF/MEK/ERK pathway to stimulate autophagy and suppress progression of tumor cells	88
In vitro	697, REH, SupB15, and RS4; 11 cells	0–40 μM	Bax/Bcl-2 Caspase-8	Apoptosis	Increased Bax/Bcl-2 ratio Loss of mitochondrial membrane potential and subsequent release of cytochrome C Caspase-8 activation and truncation of BID	89