Table 2.

Curcumin anticancer effect and mechanisms.

Study type	Subjects	Dose / frequency	Outcome & Mechanisms	Reference
In vitro	MCF-7 breast cancer cell line	50 µg/mL	Decreasing Mcl-1 gene expression	(Khazaei Koohpar et al., 2015)
			Inducing apoptosis
In vitro	HNSCC cells (FaDu & Cal27)	12.5 µM	Increasing pro-apoptotic protein Bik and Bim	(Xi et al., 2015)
			Reducing phosphorylation of NF-κB and STAT-3
			Suppressing cyclin D1 and D2 expression
In vitro	MCF-7 breast cancer cell line	2.5 µM	Inducing Bcl-2 expression (apoptosis)	(Zhan et al., 2014)
			Suppression of the EGFR expression
In vitro	MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells	2–10 μM	Activating the ERK signaling pathway	(Wang et al., 2016b)
			Autophagy induced by activation of JNK
In vitro	MCF7, MDA-MB-231, and SKBR3 breast cancer cells		Increasing Tusc7 and GAS5 expression	(Esmatabadi et al., 2018)
In vitro	MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell	40 µM	Activating p38-MAPK	(Meena et al., 2017)
			Decreasing CDK2, CDK4, cyclin D1, and cyclin E levels
			Inducing cell cycle arrest at G1/ and G2/M phases
In vitro	Patu8988 pancreatic cell line	10, 15 and 20 μM	Suppressing cell growth, inhibiting migration and invasion, and inducing apoptosis	(Zhou et al., 2016)
			Downregulating YAP and TAZ expression
			Suppressing Notch-1 expression.
In vitro	PANC1 and BxPC3 cell lines	10 - 80 µg/mL	Inducing cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase	(Zhu and Bu, 2017)
			Upregulating of Bax and LC3II expression
			Downregulating Bcl2 expression
In vitro	HCT116 colon cancer cell line	5, 10 and 20 μM	Inhibiting EIF2, eIF4/p70S6K, and mTOR signaling pathways	(Wang et al., 2016a)
			Inhibiting de novo protein synthesis
			Increasing ROS levels due to mitochondrial dysfunction
In vitro / In vivo	SW480 colon cancer cell line	200 mg/kg b.w. for 5 days	Decreasing β-catenin expression	(Dou et al., 2017)
			Upregulating of Nkd2
			Suppressing the Wnt/β-Catenin Pathway via miR-130a
In vivo	Male Sprague–Dawley rats	25, 50, and 75 mg/kg b.w.	Downregulating the PI3-K/Akt/PTEN pathway	(Rana et al., 2015)
			Increasing pro-apoptotic Bad and Bax expression
			Inhibiting Bcl2 expression
In vivo	Male nude BALB/c mice	100 mg/kg b.w. each 2 days	Downregulating Notch and HIF-1 mRNA expression	(Li et al., 2018b)
			Suppressing VEGF and NF-κB expression VEGF and NF-κB expression
In vitro	Human lung cancer cells (NCI-H1299, NCI-H460, NCI-H520 and NCI-H446)	5-40 µM	Upregulating IGFBP-1	(Man et al., 2018)
			Suppressing the PCNA and NF-κB pathway
			Activating JNK phosphorylation
In vitro / In vivo	HCT11 and HT29 colon cancer cells Male nude BALB/c mice	10, 20, 30 and 40 µM, 40 mg/kg b.w.	Downregulating NF-κB activation	(Zhang et al., 2017)
			Inhibiting AMPK/ULK1-dependent autophagy
In vitro	Mouse prostate cancer cells TRAMP-C1	50 and 100 nM	Activating Nrf2 expression	(Li et al., 2018a)
			Reducing the methylation rate of the Nrf2 promoter
			Reducing H3k27me3 enrichment on the Nrf2 promoter region