Synergistic Anti-tumor Effects of KLF4 Overexpression and Curcumin in a Human Gastric Carcinoma Cell Line

Gastric carcinoma is one of the most invasive and aggressive malignancy, with serious threatens to patients’ health. Gastric cancer is considered as the fourth most common cancer worldwide which is caused by eating disorders, Helicobacter pylori (HP), carcinogenic chemicals and so on (Ekinci et al., 2014; Gryko et al., 2014; Huang et al., 2014). It is investigated that dietary improvements and prevention in HP infection due to the use of antibiotics can effectively cause a steady decrease in incidence and mortality rates of stomach cancer (Ekinci et al., 2014). While the present situation of gastric cancer therapy is still barely satisfactory, it is imperative to get a detailed understanding of the molecular biology of gastric carcinoma. It will be undoubtedly a general trend that molecular therapy combined with anti-tumor natural compound are employed in gastric carcinoma treatment. The Krüppel-like factor (KLFs) family transcription factors play important role in the regulation of multiple biological functions, including proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, inflammation, migration and tumor formation (Tiwari et al., 2013). KLF4 known as a zinc finger type of transcription factor has been investigated highly expressed in the skin, intestine, testis, lung, bone and various tumor tissues. KLF4 also called gut-enriched Krllppel-like factor (GKLF) has drawn much attention due to its tumor suppressive activity and growth arrest. It is reported that KLF4 is downregulated in a number of cancers (Flandez et al., 2008, Zhang et al., 2012).