Significantly reduced lymphadenopathy, salivary gland infiltrates and proteinuria in MRL-lpr/lpr mice treated with ultrasoluble curcumin/turmeric: increased survival with curcumin treatment. Issue 1 (8th September 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kurien, Biji T; Harris, Valerie M; Quadri, Syed M S; Coutinho-de Souza, Patricia; Cavett, Joshua; Moyer, Amanda; Ittiq, Bilal; Metcalf, Angela; Ramji, Husayn F; Truong, Dat; Kumar, Ramesh; Koelsch, Kristi A; Centola, Mike; Payne, Adam; Danda, Debashish; Scofield, R Hal
• Is Part Of: Lupus science & medicine. Volume 2:Issue 1(2015)
• Publication Date: 2015-09-08
• Subjects: Autoantibodies -- Autoimmunity -- Sjøgren's Syndrome -- Systemic Lupus Erythematosus -- Treatment; Systemic lupus erythematosus -- Periodicals; 616.772005
• DOI: 10.1136/lupus-2015-000114
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2398-8851

Abstract

Abstract : Objectives: Commercial curcumin (CU), derived from food spice turmeric (TU), has been widely studied as a potential therapeutic for a variety of oncological and inflammatory conditions. Lack of solubility/bioavailability has hindered curcumin's therapeutic efficacy in human diseases. We have solubilised curcumin in water applying heat/pressure, obtaining up to 35-fold increase in solubility (ultrasoluble curcumin (UsC)). We hypothesised that UsC or ultrasoluble turmeric (UsT) will ameliorate systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and Sjögren's syndrome (SS)-like disease in MRL- lpr/lpr mice. Methods: Eighteen female MRL- lpr/lpr (6 weeks old) and 18 female MRL-MpJ mice (6 weeks old) were used. Female MRL- lpr/lpr mice develop lupus-like disease at the 10th week and die at an average age of 17 weeks. MRL-MpJ mice develop lupus-like disease around 47 weeks and typically die at 73 weeks. Six mice of each strain received autoclaved water only ( lpr -water or MpJ-water group), UsC ( lpr -CU or MpJ-CU group) or UsT ( lpr -TU or MpJ-TU group) in the water bottle. Results: UsC or UsT ameliorates SLE in the MRL- lpr/lpr mice by significantly reducing lymphoproliferation, proteinuria, lesions (tail) and autoantibodies. lpr -CU group had a 20% survival advantage over lpr -water group. However, lpr -TU group lived an average of 16 days shorter than lpr -water group due to complications unrelated to lupus-like illness. CU/TU treatment inhibited lymphadenopathy significantly compared with lpr -water group (p=0.03 and p=0.02, respectively) by induction of apoptosis. Average lymph node weights were 2606±1147, 742±331 and 385±68 mg, respectively, for lpr -water, lpr -CU and lpr -TU mice. Transferase dUTP nick end labelling assay showed that lymphocytes in lymph nodes of lpr -CU and lpr -TU mice underwent apoptosis. Significantly reduced cellular infiltration of the salivary glands in the lpr -TU group compared with the lpr -water group, and a trend towards reduced kidney damage was observed in the lpr -CU and lpr -TU groups. Conclusions: These studies show that UsC/UsT could prove useful as a therapeutic intervention in SLE/SS.