Metastasis and recurrence of bladder cancer are the main reasons for its poor prognosis and high mortality rates.
Because of its biological activity and high metabolic accumulation in urine, sulforaphane, a phytochemical exclusively occurring in cruciferous vegetables, has a powerful and specific potential for preventing bladder cancer. In this paper, sulforaphane is shown to significantly suppress a variety of biochemical pathways including the attachment, invasion, migration and chemotaxis motion in malignant transitional bladder cancer T24 cells. Transfection with cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) overexpression plasmid largely abolished inhibition of MMP2/9 expression as well as cell invasive capability by sulforaphane. Moreover, sulforaphane inhibited the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process which underlies tumor cell invasion and migration mediated by E-cadherin induction through reducing transcriptional repressors, such as ZEB1 and Snail. Under conditions of over-expression of COX-2 and/or MMP2/9, sulforaphane was still able to induce E-cadherin or reduce Snail/ZEB1 expression, suggesting that additional pathways might be involved. Further studies indicated that miR-200c played a role in the regulation of E-cadherin via the ZEB1 repressor but not by the Snail repressor. In conclusion, the EMT and two recognized signaling pathways (COX-2/MMP2,9/ ZEB1, Snail and miR-200c/ZEB1) are all targets for sulforaphane. This study indicated that sulforaphane may possess therapeutic potential in preventing recurrence of human bladder cancer.
Written by:
Shan Y, Zhang L, Bao Y, Li B, He C, Gao M, Feng X, Xu W, Zhang X, Wang S Are you the author?
School of Food Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150090, China; Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Public Health College, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150081, China
Reference: J Nutr Biochem. 2012 Nov 13. pii: S0955-2863(12)00211-2(Epub ahead of print)
doi: 10.1016/j.jnutbio.2012.08.004
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 23159064
