Dr. Weeks’ Comment: I have lectured for years about changing our mind set from a war on cancer – killing cancer cells – to a re-education or doctoring (literally, “doctor” means to “lead” or “teach”) of the cancer cells. Can cancer cells be brought “back to the fold” (i.e re-differentiate) and become a healthy cells. The answer is “YES” – it happens all the time if…. the environment is conducive to health. Here, we see vitamin A can help pre-cancerous cells behave again.
Ask any one who has suffered from conventional cancer care (chemotherapy and radiation) would agree that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”.
“…Our results showed that 1 µM ATRA was able to re-differentiate transformed cells at early stages of the neoplastic process and antagonistically regulate breast cancer associated genes…”
All trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) induces re-differentiation of early transformed breast epithelial cells.
Int J Oncol. 2014 Jun;44(6):1831-42. doi: 10.3892/ijo.2014.2354. Epub 2014 Mar 21.
Abstract
Retinoids have been used as potential chemotherapeutic or chemopreventive agents because of their differentiative, anti-proliferative, pro-apoptotic and antioxidant properties. We investigated the effect of all trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) at different stages of the neoplastic transformation using an in vitro model of breast cancer progression. This model was previously developed by treating the MCF-10F human normal breast epithelial cells with high dose of estradiol and consists of four cell lines which show a progressive neoplastic transformation: MCF-10F, normal stage; trMCF, transformed MCF-10F; bsMCF, invasive stage; and caMCF, tumorigenic stage. In 3D cultures, MCF-10F cells form tubules resembling the structures in the normal mammary gland. After treatment with estradiol, these cells formed tubules and spherical masses which are indicative of transformation. Cells that only formed spherical masses in collagen were isolated (trMCF clone 11) and treated with ATRA. After treatment with 10 or 1 µM ATRA, the trMCF clone 11 cells showed tubules in collagen; 10 and 43% of the structures were tubules in cells treated with 10 and 1 µM ATRA, respectively. Gene expression studies showed that 207 genes upregulated in transformed trMCF clone 11 cells were downregulated after 1 µM ATRA treatment to levels comparable to those found in the normal breast epithelial cells MCF-10F. Furthermore, 236 genes that were downregulated in trMCF clone 11 were upregulated after 1 µM ATRA treatment to similar levels shown in normal epithelial cells. These 443 genes defined a signature of the ATRA re-programming effect. Our results showed that 1 µM ATRA was able to re-differentiate transformed cells at early stages of the neoplastic process and antagonistically regulate breast cancer associated genes. The invasive and tumorigenic cells did not show any changes in morphology after ATRA treatment. These results suggest that ATRA could be used as a chemopreventive agent to inhibit the progression of premalignant lesions of the breast.