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| Cancer Breakthrough: Researchers Demonstrate Red Wine Molecule Inhibits Protein That Triggers Rapid Tumor Cell Growth Via Oxygen Deprivation Friday May 04, 2007 Researchers at the University of Southern California report that a molecule found in red wine inhibits a protein that controls the rapid growth of tumors. Since the work of Nobel Prize winner Otto Warberg in the 1930s, it has been known that tumor cells are hypoxic, that is, they no longer utilize oxygen to produce energy, and produce energy by fermentation. In search of a supply of oxygen, tumor cells then relentlessly proceed to migrate and send signals for new blood vessels to grow towards the tumor (a process called angiogenesis). In so doing, the tumor obtains nutrients and grows at an accelerated pace. A major reason for treatment failure is that the most aggressive tumors over-produce HIF-1. If just 10% of malignant cells over-activate HIF-1 the tumor is more likely to resist radiation treatment. [Molecular Cancer Therapeutics 3: 647-54, 2004] Cancer investigators believe HIF-1 inhibiting drugs may overcome the problems posed by fast-growing solid tumors. Researchers exclaim that “the most exciting possibility would be the discovery of small-molecule inhibitors of HIF-1.” [Nature Medicine 9: 677-84, 2003] Small molecules would be able to penetrate inside the nucleus of tumor cells, to inhibit the activity of HIF-1. [Current Cancer Drug Targets 3: 391-405, 2003] Researchers now believe hypoxia-inducible factor-1 is a promising drug target, and that resveratrol, a red wine molecule, appears to be the small molecule they were searching for since it “dramatically inhibits the stimulatory effects of hypoxia on invasive tumor cells.” [Molecular Cancer Therapeutics 4: 1465-74, October 2005] Once tumor cells no longer exhibit high HIF-1 activity, blood vessels that supply nutrients to these malignant cells begin to recede, the tumor cells begin to utilize oxygen once again, and these otherwise immortal cells begin to age and die off. --Bill Sardi, for Resveratrol News, Copyright 2005.
Accumulation of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 in skin cancer cells ========================================================
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