Affiliations: College of Pharmacy, Seoul National University, Seoul
151-742, Korea
Note: [] College of Pharmacy, Seoul National University, Shinlim-dong,
Kwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Korea. Tel.: +82 2 880 7845; Fax: +82 2 874 9775;
E-mail: surh@plaza.snu.ac.kr
Note: [] The second author (S.S. Han) contributed mostly to the
experimental part of this mork
Abstract: Recently, considerable attention has been focused on identifying
dietary and medicinal phytochemicals that can inhibit, retard or reverse the
multi-stage carcinogenesis. Spices and herbs contain phenolic substances with
potent antioxidative and chemopreventive properties. Curcumin, a yellow
colouring agent from turmeric and capsaicin, a pungent principle of red pepper
exhibit profound anticarcinogenic and antimutagenic activities. Two
well-defined eukaryotic transcription factors, nuclear factor-kappa B
(NF-\kappaB) and activator protein 1 (AP-1) have been
implicated in pathogenesis of many human diseases including cancer. These
transcription factors are known to be activated by a wide array of external
stimuli, such as tumor promoter
12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA), tumor necrosis
factor, reactive oxygen species, bacterial lipopolysaccharide, and ultraviolet.
In the present study, we found that topical application of TPA onto dorsal skin
of female ICR mice resulted in marked activation of epidermal
NF-\kappaB and AP-1. Curcumin and capsaicin, when topically
applied prior to TPA, significantly attenuated TPA-induced activation of each
transcription factor in mouse skin. Likewise, both compounds inhibited
NF-\kappaB and AP-1 activation in cultured human
promyelocytic leukemia (HL-60) cells stimulated with TPA. Based on these
findings, it is likely that curcumin and capsaicin exert anti-tumor promotional
effects through suppression of the tumor promoter-induced activation of
transcription factors, NF-\kappaB and AP-1.
