Background/aim: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Many factors such as stress, lifestyle, and dietary habits are known to play a role in the initiation and progression of the disease. Herbal therapeutic agents including curcumin can hold a great potential against cancer treatment; however, their efficacy on CRC is still under investigation. Herein, we evaluated the anticancer mechanism of curcumin on four different CRC cell lines. Materials and methods: Cells were treated with curcumin for 24, 48 and 72 h, and IC50 doses for each cell line were calculated. Mechanistic studies were conducted with the lowest IC50 dose determined for each cell line by evaluating apoptosis and necrosis, cell division, and NLRP3-mediated pyroptosis. Results: Curcumin treatment significantly decreased viability while increasing the SubG1 phase in all cell lines tested, indicating apoptosis is the main programmed cell death pathway activated upon curcumin treatment in CRC. In terms of pyroptosis, components of NLRP3 inflammasome were found to be elevated in SW480 and HCT116 cell lines, although to a lesser extent in the latter, and NLRP3 inflammasome activation was not observed in LoVo and HT29 cells. Conclusion: Our results reveal that while curcumin effectively induces apoptosis, its effects on NLRP3-inflammasome mediated pyroptosis vary. Our results underline the need for further research focusing on the other inflammasome complexes to confirm the differential effects of curcumin on CRC.

An activity-guided isolation study on the EtOH extract prepared from the bulbs of Prospero autumnale yielded four new phenolic compounds, including a new stilbenoid (1), a new homoisoflavonoid derivative (8), a new homoisoflavonoid dimer (9), and an unprecedented homoisoflavone-stilbene heterodimer (10), together with six known (2-7) analogs. Their chemical structures were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis and theoretical NMR and ECD calculations. Compounds 9 and 10 are unique in their scaffolds. The in vitro cytotoxic activity of purified compounds was evaluated against eight tumor cell lines (HCT116, LoVo, DU145, PC3, HEP3B, HEPG2, MCF7, and MDA-MB-231) and one nontumor cell line (L929) by the MTS assay. Compounds 1, 2, 4, and 10 exhibited inhibition with IC₅₀ values ranging from 8.2 to 37.6 μM. Cytotoxic cell death mechanisms were further investigated, indicating variability in apoptosis, necrosis, or cell cycle arrest.

The aim was to compare granulosa cell's (GCs) apoptosis rate with (group A) or without (group B) luteinising hormone (LH) supplementation in poor ovarian responders (PORs) during controlled ovarian stimulation (COS). After oocyte retrieval, the follicular fluid was analysed by cytoflowmetry. Primary outcomes were GCs apoptosis rate in terms of viability, early apoptosis, late apoptosis and necrosis. Secondary outcome was clinical pregnancy rate. The viability was 96.7{IQR: 8} and 83.5{IQR: 20} for groups A and B, respectively (p < .001). Late apoptosis rates were significantly lower in group A (median 1.5, {IQR: 3.1}) than group B (median 9.5, {IQR: 20.6}) (p < .001). Median early apoptosis rates were 1.4 {IQR: 2.9} and 5.2 {IQR: 6.5} for group A and B respectively (p = .04). No significant difference was observed in the clinical pregnancy rate. Although LH seems necessary in PORs to decrease late granulosa apoptosis rates, this does not improve clinical pregnancy rates.