Table 2.

Cancer therapeutic properties of curcumin and its analogues mediated through generation.

Properties	Models	Mechanism	Reference
Apoptosis	Myeloid leukemia K562 cells	Releases cytochrome c from mitochondria, PARP and caspase-9 cleavages	[93]
	Melanoma A375 cells	Induces ROS burst, decreases GSH, and wrecks MMP	[94]
	Gastric cancer BGC-823 cells	Induces ROS, activates ASK1, and phosphorylates JNK protein	[95]
	Leukemic Jurkat and K562 cells	Downregulates IAPs, pAkt, c-Myc, and cyclin D1	[96]
	Breast cancer MCF-7, MDAMB, HepG2 cells	Generates ROS	[97]
Cell cycle arrest	Breast cancer MCF-7 cells	Downregulates cyclin B1, Cdc2 and NF-κB by decreasing the interaction of pIκB-NF-κB	[98]
Cell cycle arrest and apoptosis	HT-29 colon cancer cells	Induced ROS generation, DNA fragmentation, chromatin condensation, and nuclear shrinkage	[99]
	K562 cells and xenograft mouse	Derivative PGV-1 induces prometaphase arrest in the M phase and induces cell senescence and death by increasing ROS.	[100]
	Prostate carcinoma PC-3 and DU145 and xenograft mice	Analogue Ca 37 induces ROS production	[101]
	Prostate cancer RM-1 and DU145 cell lines and xenograft mice	Analog WZ35 induces ROS overproduction, intracellular calcium surge, and mitochondrial disruption	[102]
	NCI-H460 cells	Analogues hexamethoxy-diarylpentadienones (1 and 2) upregulate p53 and p21 and downregulate Cdc25C, cyclin B1/Cdk1 in a Michael acceptor- and ROS-dependent fashion	[103]
	NSCLC A549 and SPC-A1 cell lines	Causes ROS production, DNA damage, endoplasmic reticulum stress and mitochondrial instability.	[92]
Chemosensitization	Glioblastoma	DMC synergistically increases TMZ-induced apoptosis by increasing ROS production, inactivating JAK/STAT3 signaling pathway and caspase-3 cleavage	[104]
Anti-tumorigenesis	CML-derived K562 cells, xenograft mouse	Derivatives upregulate ROS levels, compete with co-enzymes to bind to the respective ROS metabolic enzymes and inhibit their activities	[105]
Anti-angiogenesis	HUVECs, CAMs	Analog A2 induces NADH/NADPH oxidase-derived ROS	[106]
Tumor re-incidence and metastasis inhibition	B16F10 cells, syngeneic mice	Nanoformulation increases intracellular curcumin accumulation and ROS formation	[107]
Anti-tumorigenesis	Gastric cancer BGC-823 cells, xenograft mice	Enhances oxidative stress, decreases mtDNA content and DNA polymerase γ	[91]
	Leukemic K562 cells, xenograft mice	Induces ROS level	[108]
Autophagy and apoptosis	lymphoma HuT-78 cells	Produces ROS, inhibits c-FLIP, Bcl-xL, cIAP, XIAP, disrupts the integrity of IKK and beclin-1 by degrading Hsp90, inhibits NF-κB, accumulates autophagy marker LC3-I	[109]
Autophagy	Colon cancer HCT116 cells	Generates ROS, converts autophagic marker LC3-I to LC3-II and degrades sequestome-1	[110]

MMP—matrix metallopeptidase, ASK1—apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1, IAPs—inhibitors of apoptosis proteins, JAK—Janus kinase, STAT3—signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, mtDNA—mitochondrial DNA, GSH—glutathione, ROS—reactive oxygen species.