Some biological activities of selected curcumin analogues

and derivatives

Lukman Hakim^* and Edy Meiyanto^#

* Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy,

# Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Faculty of Pharmacy, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia

Introduction

Curcumin has been recognized as a natural compound having many beneficial effects for the treatment of many clinical problems, including inflammation (Chainani-Wu, 2003), cancer, rheumathoid arthritis, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and HIV (Aggarwal et al, 2005). Although the compound is considered efficaceous and relatively safe for human use, attempts have been made to increase or to broaden its spectra of efficacies by producing the analogs or derivatives (Ohtsu et al, 2002; Adams et al, 2004). The development of such new compounds for anticancer has also become a focus of research interests in recent years. Among these, Youssef (2006) has screened many curcumin analogues against some cancer cell lines and found some candidates having cytotoxic activity. Robinson et al. (2003), Snyder (2006) and Ligeret et al. (2004) have reported some curcumin derivatives for antiangiogenesis, antiproliferative and apoptotic activities.