Lycopene chemopreventive effect

To date, only eight studies in animal models have been pubhshed on the cancer chemopreventive effects of lycopene or tomato carotenoids (Table 32.3), with the majority showing a protective effect of lycopene. A positive correlation between lycopene or tomato product intake and cancer... 

The results indicated that lycopene could effectively suppress the growth and progression of colon cancer in tumor-bearing mice. They also demonstrated that lycopene significantly suppressed the nuclear expression of PCNA and p-catenin proteins in tumor tissues. Consumption of lycopene could also augment the E-cadherin adherent molecule and nuclear levels of cell cycle inhibitor p21(CIPlAVAFl) protein. The chemopreventive effects of lycopene were associated with suppression of COX-2, PGE(2), and phosphorylated ERKl/2 proteins. Furthermore, the inhibitory effects of lycopene were inversely correlated with the plasma levels of matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) in tumor-bearing mice. 

Lin MC, Wang FY, Kuo YH, Tang FY (2011) Cancer chemopreventive effects of lycopene suppression of MMP-7 expression and cell invasion in human colon cancer cells. J Agric Food Chem 59 11304-11318... 

Moselhy SS, A1 Mshnani MA (2008) Chemopreventive effect of lycopene alone ot with melatonin against the genesis of oxidative stress and mammary tumms induced by 7,12 dimethyl(a)benzanthracene in sprague dawely female rats. Mol Cell Biochem 319 175-180... 

The induction of differentiation may be an effective mechanism for chemoprevention of chronic diseases. It has been reported that lycopene alone induced differentiation of HL-60 promyelocytic leukemia cells (Amir et al., 1999). A similar effect was also observed for other carotenoids, including P-carotene and lutein (Liu et al., 1997 Sokoloski et al.,1997). 

Gj-S transition in the cell cycle and suggests that muscadine grape skin extracts contain chemopreventive phytochemicals other than resveratrol. Lycopene (Fig. 4), a potent antioxidant carotenoid in tomatoes and other fruits, protects against prostate (Dahan et al., 2008) and other cancers (Seren et al., 2008). Plant sterol-enriched foods are an effective dietary adjuvant in reducing cardiovascular risk by lowering total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) in serum by up to 15% (Patch et al., 2006 Jones et al., 2000). 

---