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Updated: Mar 26, 2026

Author Spotlight: Genetic Profiling for Fluorouracil Response in Gastric Cancer
Published on: May 10, 2024
Curcumin Enhances the Effects of 5-Fluorouracil and Oxaliplatin in Inducing Gastric Cancer Cell Apoptosis Both In
Xiang Zhou1, Weiming Wang, Pihong Li
1Department of Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
Abstract:
Despite the efficacy of fluoropyrimidines and oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy for patients, this treatment leads to significant patient inconvenience, toxicity, and cost. This study aims to validate a nontoxic agent, curcumin, to the current chemotherapeutic regimen. In in vitro experiments, curcumin induced apoptosis in gastric cancer cell line BGC-823. Synergistic antitumor effects of curcumin were observed in combination with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and oxaliplatin. These effects were accompanied by downregulation of the expression of Bcl-2 protein and mRNA and upregulation of the expression of Bax and caspase 3, 8, and 9. In addition, the in vivo study showed that the combination of curcumin and 5-FU/oxaliplatin exhibited potent growth inhibition of BGC-823 xenograft tumors. Furthermore, compared with the control group, no significant difference was observed in the body weight of curcumin-treated nude mice. In conclusion, curcumin may act synergistically with the chemotherapeutic regimen FOLFOX in gastric cancer in vitro and in vivo by inducing apoptosis via Bcl/Bax-caspase 8,9-caspase 3 pathway.
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