Figure 3.

Curcumin attenuates 5-FU-induced over-expression of TS together with activation of NF-κB and other major survival signals. (A) Treatment with 5-FU alone induced a significant over-expression of TS and activation of NF-κB and IKK, which was remarkably down-regulated by curcumin pre-treatment. Total proteins were extracted from tumor samples and were subjected to Western blot analysis using specific antibodies against TS, p-p65, and p-IKK. (B) Curcumin pre-treatment down-regulates 5-FU induced up-regulation of XIAP, c-IAP1, and Bcl-2. All experiments were repeated thrice with samples from different animals of the same treatment groups. Vinculin and GAPDH levels demonstrate equal loading of samples. (C) Curcumin pre-treatment remarkably suppressed 5-FU-induced activation of Akt and MAPKs. (D) Immunohistochemical analysis of the expression status of TS and p65 subunit of NF-κB, p-Akt, p-p42/44 and p-JNK in tumor tissue sections from experimental groups. (E) Curcumin pre-treatment down-regulates 5-FU-induced over-expression of MDR-1, c-Myc, Cox-2, ABCG2 and VEGF in human BC xenografts. All experiments were repeated thrice with samples from different animals of the same treatment groups. Anti-Vinculin immunoblot serves as the loading control.