the her-2 as a target gene of curcumin to protect hepatocytes against the arsenic-induced carcinoma in mice

Background & objective: the her-2 gene is an important on co protein overexpressed in many types of cancers. the current study hypothesized that curcumin downregulates her-2 and inhibits the signal transduction pathway of pi3k/akt, mapk, and activation of nfκb, which could be useful to treat overexpressed-her-2 hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc).methods: in the current study, 40 male nmri (naval medical research institute) mice were divided into 4 groups of 10 as follow: group1 (control group) only received 5 ml/kg corn oil, group 2 (poisoned group) received 30 mg/l arsenic (as2o3) dissolved in water, group3 (curcumin treated), and group 4 (curcumin and arsenic treated) received 10 to 20mg/5ml/kg for 60 days. once experimental period was completed, liver samples were collected. the analysis of the gene expression was performed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (pcr) technique.results: gene expression analysis showed that curcumin had significantly downregulated the activity of her-2, in poisoned mice.conclusion: according to the current study results, it could be concluded that curcumin has the inhibitory potential toward her-2-overexpressed hcc.