Background: Gastric cancer is known as the 4th cause of malignancy and mortality in the world. Several risk factors have been defined for this malignancy as diet and environmental factors. Curcumin is a herbal derivate which has obvious effects on suppression of malignancies via inhibition of apoptosis, cell proliferation, invasion and angiogenesis. It has also been shown that Curcumin has no adverse effect on body normal cells. The most important limitation factor in its clinical use is being water insoluble, low absorption rate and bio-instability. The aim of this study was to use Dendrosomes as carriers of Curcumin and to study the induction of apoptosis on AGS cells.
Materials and Methods: In this study, AGS cells have been exposed to different concentrations of Polymer Nano Curcumin (5 to 20 micromole). Metabolic activity of these cells has been evaluated by using MTT test. Also apoptosis has been studied using Annexin test.
Results: This study showed that Nano Curcumin concentration of 13 micromole is able to suppress metabolic activity of 50% of cellules and also to suppress apoptosis in 26% of them in compare with control group.
Conclusion: The concentration of encapsulated agent that may lead to inhibition of metabolic activity and apoptosis is too low. As Dendrosomes have been shown to be non-toxic on body cells and also the amount of free Curcumin which is needed to have effects like this study is too high, it looks that 13 micromole concentration of Nano Curcumin polymer has significant better effect on clinical targets in compare with free form.