TP53 and cancer: All these reports indicate that curcumin can induce cancer cell killing predominantly via p53-mediated pathway, p53 not only controls apoptotic pathways but also acts as a key cell cycle regulatory protein as it can trans-activate cell cycle inhibitors like Cip1 on the event of DNA damage during proliferation and when the damage is irreparable it induces apoptosis by inducing the expression of pro-apoptotic proteins like Bax (Figure 2).