Vitamin D Found To Stimulate A Protein That Inhibits The Growth Of Breast Cancer Cells
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Chistakos, a professor of biochemistry, has published extensively on the multiple roles of vitamin D, including inhibition of the growth of malignant cells found in breast cancer. Her current findings on the vitamin D induced protein that inhibits breast cancer growth are published in a recent issue of The Journal of Biological Chemistry. Previous research had determined that increased serum levels of vitamin D are associated with an improved diagnosis in patients with breast cancer. Prior to the current study, little was known about the factors that determine the effect of calcitrol on inhibiting breast cancer growth, she said. During the study, Christakos and coauthor Puneet Dhawan, Ph.D., examined the protein involved in the raction that can reduce the growth of vitamin D in breast cancer cells. "These results provide an important process in which the active form of vitamin D may work to reduce growth of breast cancer cells," said Christakos. "These studies provide a basis for the design of new anticancer agents that can target the protein as a candidate for breast cancer treatment."
Women should go for the broccoli when the relish tray comes around during holiday celebrations this season.
While it has been known for some time that eating cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, can help prevent breast cancer, the mechanism by which the active substances in these vegetables inhibit cell proliferation was unknown — until now.
Scientists in the UC Santa Barbara
laboratories of Leslie Wilson, professor
of biochemistry and pharmacology, and
Mary Ann Jordan, adjunct professor in
the Department of Molecular, Cellular,
and Developmental Biology, have
shown how the healing power of these
vegetables works at the cellular level.
Their research is published in this
month's journal Carcinogenesis. "Breast cancer, the second leading
cause of cancer deaths in women, can
be protected against by eating
cruciferous vegetables such as
cabbage and near relatives of cabbage
such as broccoli and cauliflower," said
first author Olga Azarenko, who is a
graduate student at UCSB. "These
vegetables contain compounds called
isothiocyanates which we believe to be
responsible for the cancer-preventive
and anti-carcinogenic activities in these
vegetables. Broccoli and broccoli
sprouts have the highest amount of the
isothiocyanates. "Our paper focuses on the anti-cancer
activity of one of these compounds,
called sulforaphane, or SFN," Azarenko
added. "It has already been shown to
reduce the incidence and rate of
chemically induced mammary tumors in
animals. It inhibits the growth of
cultured human breast cancer cells,
leading to cell death." Azarenko made the surprising
discovery that SFN inhibits the
proliferation of human tumor cells by a
mechanism similar to the way that the
anticancer drugs taxol and vincristine
inhibit cell division during mitosis.
Mitosis is the process in which the
duplicated DNA in the form of
chromosomes is accurately distributed
to the two daughter cells when a cell
divides.
Hundreds of tiny tube-like structures, called microtubules, make up the machinery that cells use to separate the chromosomes. SFN, like the more powerful anticancer agents, interferes with microtubule functioning during mitosis in a similar manner to the more powerful anticancer drugs. However SFN is much weaker than these other plant-based drugs, and thus much less toxic. "SFN may be an effective cancer preventive agent because it inhibits the proliferation and kills precancerous cells," said Wilson. It is also possible that it could be used as an addition to taxol and other similar drugs to increase effective killing of tumor cells without increased toxicity.