Curcumin Suppresses Hepatic Stellate Cell-Induced Hepatocarcinoma Angiogenesis and Invasion through Downregulating CTGF

Figure 1

Curcumin inhibits HSC-induced HCC angiogenesis by suppressing HIF-1α. HUVECs were incubated with conditioned medium from the HepG2 (St Med), HepG2 + HSC (CM), HepG2 + HSC + curcumin (CM + Cur), HepG2 + HSC + NAC (CM + NAC), sh-HIF-1α-HepG2 + HSC + curcumin (sh-HIF-1α-CM + Cur), sh-HIF-1α-HepG2 + HSC + NAC (sh-HIF-1α-CM + NAC) groups, HSC only (HSC-CM), and sh-HIF-1α-HepG2 only (sh-HIF-1α-CM). Cur stands for Curcumin. 50 μM Curcumin was added into the medium for 24 h in CM + Cur group or sh-HIF-1α-CM + Cur group. 20 mM NAC was added into the medium for 24 h in CM + NAC group or sh-HIF-1α-CM + NAC group. (a) Angiogenesis was evaluated based on tube formation (indicated by arrows). (b) Tube numbers were counted. versus St Med group (), versus CM group (). (c) HIF-1α in HepG2 cells or HSCs was silenced by sh-RNA. HIF-1α and β-actin expression levels were determined by immunoblotting. , sh-control versus sh-HIF-1α, . (d) HepG2 or HSCs were treated as in (c), and HIF-1α and β-actin expression levels were determined by qRT-PCR. , sh-control versus sh-HIF-1α, . All data are representative of at least three independent experiments. (e) Hydrogen peroxide production in HepG2 cells was determined using DCF-DA, and total protein content was used to normalize the data. versus St Med group (), versus CM ().

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