Curcumin has long been known to posses medicinal properties and recent scientific studies have shown its efficacy<br>in treating cancer. Curcumin is now considered to be a promising anti-cancer agent and studies continue on its<br>molecular mechanism of action. Curcumin has been shown to act in a multi-faceted manner by targeting the classical<br>hallmarks of cancer like sustained proliferation, evasion of apoptosis, sustained angiogenesis, insensitivity to growth<br>inhibitors, tissue invasion and metastasis etc. However, one of the emerging hallmarks of cancer is the avoidance of<br>immune system by tumors. Growing tumors adopt several strategies to escape immune surveillance and successfully<br>develop in the body. In this review we highlight the recent studies that show that curcumin also targets this process<br>and helps restore the immune activity against cancer. Curcumin mediates several processes like restoration of CD4+/<br>CD8+ T cell populations, reversal of type-2 cytokine bias, reduction of Treg cell population and suppression of T cell<br>apoptosis; all these help to resurrect tumor immune surveillance that leads to tumor regression. Thus interaction of<br>curcumin with the immune system is also an important feature of its multi-faceted modes of action against cancer.<br><br>Finally, we also point out the drawbacks of and difficulties in curcumin administration and indicate the use of nano-<br>formulations of curcumin for better therapeutic efficacy.
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