• OCT4B1 up-regulation in BM-MSCs and HSFPI3 after Nanocurcumin Treatment
  • Zahra Abbasy,1,*
    1. Faculty of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran


  • Introduction: The tumor recurrence is a big dilemma which may be neglected especially in vitro experimental designs. The crucial and vital player in this phenomenon is the tumor initiating cells (TICs). OCT4 is widely appreciated non-cell surface for TICs, dedicates detrimental properties to these cells including self-renewal, epithelial mesenchymal capacity, and drug resistance. OCT4 and its partners Sox2 and Nanog are up-regulated in stem cells; on the other hand normal stem cells are more resistant to various herbal remedies like curcumin. Based on these facts our main aim in this study was to investigate the alteration of the mentioned genes expression after curcumin treatment in human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSCs) and non-tumor fibroblast cells (HSFPI3).
  • Methods: MTT assay was performed to calculate the effective concentration of curcumin. To confirm the apoptosis induction in these cells after treatment with curcumin, Annexin V-PI was applied. To assess the expression level of OCT4 and Nanog, real-time PCR performed to quantify the alteration of the mRNA expression of the mentioned genes after treatment in hBM-MSCs and HSFPI3.
  • Results: Curcumin could not induce significant apoptosis in hBM-MSCs and HSFPI3 even after 24 and 36 hours treatment in a toxic concentration for cancerous cells. After 36 hours treatment with DNC, the mRNA expression level of Oct4-B1 in both cells enhanced significantly compared with the untreated samples. In HSFPI3 cells Nanog mRNA expression level increased either after this treatment.
  • Conclusion: non-tumor cells are more resistant to the curcumin treatment compared with the cancerous cells. This is at least partially due to the different expression pattern results in these cells post treatment with this reagent. Pluripotent markers including Oct4-B1 and Nanog are proposed to play important role in this non-tumor cells curcumin resistance.
  • Keywords: cancer stem cells, pluripotent markers, cancer cells, non-tumor cells, Nanog