Nitric Oxide-Releasing NO–Curcumin Hybrid Inhibits Colon Cancer Cell Proliferation and Induces Cell Death In Vitro

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, and most of the currently available drugs for cancer treatment have limited potential. Natural products and their relatives continue to represent a very high percentage of the drugs used for cancer treatment. Curcumin is one of several natural drugs that has recently attracted much attention due to its putative cancer-preventive and anticancer properties. As well, Nitric Oxide (NO) holds a great potential for NO-based treatments for a wide variety of diseases. Here, for the first time, we tested the anti-cancer activities of an NO–Curcumin hybrid, hypothesizing that by joining the effects of curcumin and NO in one compound, the hybrid compound would be more potent than curcumin alone in treating colon cancer. To compare the anti-cancer activities of curcumin and NO–curcumin, we treated different colon cancer cell lines with either curcumin or NO–curcumin and tested their effects on cell proliferation and death. Our results show that NO–curcumin is more effective in reducing cell proliferation and increasing cell death when compared to curcumin. In addition, NO–curcumin has a lower IC50 compared to curcumin. Altogether, our results demonstrate for the first time that an NO–curcumin hybrid has more potent anti-cancer activity compared to curcumin alone, making it a potential future treatment for cancer and perhaps other diseases.