Curcumin was beneficial in acute lung injury and lung fibrosis.

PMID: 

Endocr Metab Immune Disord Drug Targets. 2019 Aug 23. Epub 2019 Aug 23. PMID: 31441735

Abstract Title: 

Curcumin Suppresses Epithelial Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) and Proliferative Protein (Ki 67) in Acute Lung Injury and Lung Fibrosis In Vitro and In Vivo.

Abstract: 

BACKGROUND: Acute lung injury is one of the common condition caused due to bleomycin therapy which leads to pulmonary fibrosis, which is one of the severe interstitial lung disease most commonly affecting the elderly individuals. EGFR and Ki67 are can be marked as beneficial markers for detecting pulmonary fibrosis based on which clinicians can guide therapy.OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to evaluate effect of curcumin as an intervention on two prognostic markers EGFR and Ki67 in bleomycin induced basal alveolar epithelial cells and C57BL/6 mice. Protein expressions and pathological expressions of EGFR and Ki67 were evaluated to analyze the effect of curcumin on it both in in vitro and in vivo approaches.METHODS: The effect of curcumin was investigated both on cell lines (A549) and animal model (both normal and bleomycin induced mice, n=6) via techniques like western blotting for protein expression. Techniques like immunofluorescence and immunohistochemistry was carried out and examined under confocal microscopy and phase contrast microscope to analyze the expressions of the said biomarkers. Bleomycin was used as a causative agent to induce inflammation.KEY FINDINGS: The natural polyphenol curcumin could downregulate the expressions levels of Ki67 and EGFR both in vitro and in vivo. Immunofluorescence analysis on proliferative marker Ki67 showed reduced expression on curcumin treatment in vitro. The pathological sections from treated lungs showed significant decrease in EGFR and Ki67 levels when exposed to curcumin.CONCLUSION: We conclude that curcumin, well-known natural bioactive compound holds strong anti-proliferative on Ki67 and EGFR expressions.We observed that, a clinical outcome in diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis remains to be unconvincing so far. Curcumin can be considered as a potential therapeutic.

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