Decoding potential targets and pharmacologic mechanisms of curcumin in treating non-small cell lung carcinoma via bioinformatics and molecular docking

Emerging evidence demonstrates that curcumin has an inhibitory effect on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and its targets and mechanism of action need further exploration. The goal of this study was to explore the potential targets and mechanism of curcumin against NSCLC by network pharmacology, bioinformatics, and experimental validation, thereby providing more insight into combination treatment with curcumin for NSCLC in preclinical and clinical research. Curcumin targets against NSCLC were predicted based on HIT2.0, STD, CTD, and DisGeNET, and the core targets were analyzed via protein-protein interaction network construction (PPI), Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and molecular docking. The gene expression levels of samples in A549 cells, NCI-H460, and curcumin treated groups were detected by real-time quantitative PCR. A total of 67 common targets between curcumin and NSCLC were collected by screening public databases. GO and KEGG analysis suggested that curcumin treatment of NSCLC mainly involves cancer-related pathways, such as PI3K-AKT signaling pathway, Foxo signaling pathway, microRNAs, MAPK signaling pathway, HIF-1 signaling pathway, etc. The targets with the highest degree were identified through the PPI network, namely CASP3, CTNNB1, JUN, IL6, MAPK3, HIF1A, STAT3, AKT1, TP53, CCND1, VEGFA, and EGFR. The results of the in vitro experiments showed that curcumin treatment of NSCLC down-regulated the gene expressions of CCND1, CASP3, HIF1A, IL-6, MAPK3, STAT3, AKT1, and TP53. Our findings revealed that curcumin functions as a potential therapeutic candidate for NSCLC by suppressing multiple signaling pathways and interacting with multiple gene targets.

Curcumin; NSCLC; Network pharmacology; Pharmacologic mechanisms; Bioinformatics