To explore the effect of curcumin on intestinal flora in mice, as well as anti-cancer mechanisms and targets by monitoring the changes of intestinal flora during the development of colorectal cancer in mice.

Twenty-five 6-week-old C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into basic diet group (BD) with 5, AOM/DSS model group (MO) with 10, and curcumin intervention model group (CU) with 10. DNA extraction and high-throughput microbiota sequencing were carried out before the experiment and before the execution.

There was no significant difference in the diversity index of mice in each group at point T1 (before intervention), and the diversity index of MO group at point T2 (after intervention) was higher than that of the other 2 groups, with a significant difference from BD group (t=2.73, P=0.02) and no significant difference from CU group. The diversity index of each group at T2 was significantly higher than that at T1, in which the diversity index of CU group and BD group were more similar at T2, and were all smaller than the MO group. Before and after the molds were made, the flora of the genus changed greatly, and the intestinal flora of the CU group changed less than that of the MO group, especially the Bacteroidetes and Verrucomicrobia. The average weight increment of MO mice was lower than that of CU group, and the number of tumor formation and tumor volume of colorectal tumors in CU group were significantly lower than that of MO group.

Curcumin can maintain the stability of intestinal flora and reduce the incidence of intestinal tumor in mice during the occurrence of colorectal cancer, which indicating that it is possible one of the mechanisms to inhibit the occurrence and development of colorectal cancer.