The combination of Curcumin and Doxorubicin on targeting PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway: an in vitro and molecular docking study for inhibiting the survival of MDA-MB-231.

The process of tumorigenesis is highly associated with the disruption of cell-cycle regulators and derangement of various signaling pathways, which end up with the inhibition of apoptosis and hyper-activation of survival pathways. The PI3K medicated AKT/mTOR pathway is the widely explained mechanism for cancer cell survival which causes the overexpression of MDM2 and downregulates the p53-BAX mediated apoptotic pathway. Curcumin (CUR), the phyto-compound, derived from Curcuma longa is currently being focused on for its anticancer activities against breast cancer cells, MDA-MB-231, not only because of its minimal cytotoxicity against healthy cells (HEK293) but also because it synergistically sensitizes the activity of Doxorubicin (DOXO) in lower doses, which can be a promising source for complementary drug development. This study aims to investigate the combinatorial effect of CUR and DOXO on PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway proteins by sequential molecular docking analysis and MD simulation studies. The lower binding affinity of the sequentially docked protein-ligand complex proves the increasing binding affinity of CUR and DOXO in the combinatorial dose. The mRNA expressions of different genes of this pathway are observed and quantified using rt-qPCR, where the decreasing fold change (2^-∆∆Ct) indicates the suppression of the AKT/mTOR pathway after co-treatment of CUR and DOXO against MDA-MB-231 cells. These in silico and in vitro findings can be a new horizon for further in vitro and clinical trials of breast cancer treatment.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40203-024-00231-2.