Curcumin and Cancer stem cell: Prostate Cancer

Curcumin, a bioactive compound isolated from the rhizome of Curcuma longa, has recently gained much attention. According to some investigations, its effectiveness is explained by the modulation of many molecular events connected with development of prostate cancer. One more advantage is its capacity to penetrate cancer stem cells, which is reported to provoke relapse and treatment refusal. It has been demonstrated that curcumin has immunomodulatory activity through altering function of diverse immune cells as macrophages, T helper and B lymphocytes, cytotoxic T lymphocytes and natural killers. Based on its structure, curcumin can prevent activation of genes responsible for inflammation through the inactivation of the NF-κB and JAK-STAT signaling pathways. Furthermore, curcumin has been found to improve the effectiveness of immunotherapy in particular immune checkpoint inhibitors, thus creating a new horizon in fighting prostate cancer. Due to its capacity to regulate several signaling pathways, suppressing inflammation, and selectively eliminating CSCs. Curcumin also shows antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-coagulant, etc. activities. The addition of biological activities of curcumin to the traditional therapy approaches may open new avenues of safer and more effective therapeutic approaches not only for a wide spectrum of cancer including prostate cancer only but many neurogenerative and immune related disorders also.