Abstract: Objective To investigate the possible mechanism of curcumin inhibition to murine melanoma growth.Methods Melanoma cell line B16F10 was injected subcutaneously into the outer side of mouse right thigh to establish a melanoma-bearing mouse model.Seven days after the establishing the model, these mice were treated with intraperitoneal injection of curcumin at 50 and 100 mg/kg respectively or RPMI 1640 culture medium as control.Fourteen days later,the mice were killed,tumor weight was calculated;the tumor nuclear factorκB activity and survivin mRNA expression were measured by Western blot and RT-PCR,respectively.Results The tumor weight was significantly lower in the curcumin-treated mice than that in the controls (P<0.01),with an inhibition rate of 55.56 % by 50 mg/kg of curcumin.The level of NF-κB activity and survivin mRNA expression were decreased by 63.19% and 51.02%,respectively,by curcumin of 50 mg/kg,55.74% and 34.69%,respectively,by curcumin of 100 mg/kg (all P<0.01),as compared with the culture medium.There was a positive correlation between the tumor NF-κB activity and survivin mRNA expression(r=0.81,P<0.01).Conclusion Curcumin may inhibit the growth of malignant melanoma by suppressing NF-κB activation and down-regulating survivin gene expression.

Key words: Melanoma,experimental, Curcumin, Transcription factor RelA, Survivin