The Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Carotenoids in Health and Disease

A special issue of Biomedicines (ISSN 2227-9059). This special issue belongs to the section "Cell Biology and Pathology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 6943

Special Issue Editors


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1. School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, 1757 Kanazawa, Ishikari-Tobetsu, Hokkaido 061-0293, Japan
2. Advanced Research Promotion Center, Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, 1757 Kanazawa, Ishikari-Tobetsu, Hokkaido 061-0293, Japan
Interests: fucoxanthin; carotenoid; dietary marine algae; cancer chemoprevention; animal model

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Department of Molecular-Targeting Prevention, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kawaramachi-Hirokoji, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto 602-8566, Japan
Interests: cancer chemoprevention; animal model; translational research
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Department of Diagnostic Pathology and Research Center of Diagnostic Pathology, Gifu Municipal Hospital, 7-1 Kashima-cho, Gifu 500-8513, Japan
Interests: colorectal carcinogenesis; cancer chemoprevention; inflammatory bowel disease; ulcerative colitis; Crohn’s disease; animal model
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Carotenoids, a category of tetraterpenoids, are fat soluble yellow-orange pigments and widely distributed in daily foods such as vegetables, fruits, and macroalgae. Carotenoids are divided into carotenes and their oxygenated derivatives (xanthophylls) that contain lycopene, α-carotene, β-carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, β-cryptoxanthin, violaxanthin, neoxanthin, and fucoxanthin. They have been identified as important phytochemicals possessing anticancer activities. To date, many epidemiological approaches have suggested that intake of foods containing carotenoids is associated with a reduction in the risk of a variety of human cancers. However, the preventive effects of carotenoids against cancers remain inconsistent. While the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) 2018 concludes that the evidence of cancer preventive effects of carotenoids-containing foods is “limited/suggestive”, promising outcomes against cancer development by carotenoids and/or foods containing carotenoids are being reported in human every day. In experimental animal model studies, carotenoid(s) administration has been reported to exert their chemopreventive and/or therapeutic potentials against various types of cancer through several mechanisms, including anti-inflammation, autophagy, apoptosis, anoikis, attenuations of core signal transduction and tumor microenvironment, and alteration of microbiota.

In future, it is possible that accumulation of more knowledge on the anti-cancer effects by carotenoids induces an upgrade to “probable” decrease in the risk of cancers.

This Special Issue invites original research, clinical studies, and/or reviews on the chemopreventive and therapeutic potentials of carotenoids in patients with cancer and in carcinogenic animal models.

Dr. Masaru Terasaki
Prof. Dr. Michihiro Mutoh
Dr. Takuji Tanaka
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • carotenoids
  • cancer chemopreventive effects
  • cancer therapeutic effects
  • carcinogenic animal model
  • translational research
  • human interventional research
  • cancer stem cells
  • epithelial-mesenchymal transition
  • tumor microenvironment
  • immune regulation

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 502 KiB  
Article
Vitamin A Deficiency and Its Association with Visceral Adiposity in Women
by Érica Góes, Adryana Cordeiro, Claudia Bento and Andrea Ramalho
Biomedicines 2023, 11(3), 991; https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines11030991 - 22 Mar 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2923
Abstract
Body adiposity is associated with increased metabolic risk, and evidence indicates that vitamin A is important in regulating body fat. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum concentrations of vitamin A and its association with body adiposity in women with the [...] Read more.
Body adiposity is associated with increased metabolic risk, and evidence indicates that vitamin A is important in regulating body fat. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum concentrations of vitamin A and its association with body adiposity in women with the recommended intake of vitamin A. A cross-sectional study was designed with 200 women divided into four groups according to Body Mass Index (BMI): normal weight (NW), overweight (OW), class I obesity (OI), and class 2 obesity (OII). The cut-off points to assess inadequate participants were retinol < 1.05 µmol/L and β-carotene < 40 µg/dL. Body adiposity was assessed through different parameters and indexes, including waist circumference (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), hypertriglyceridemic waist (HW), lipid accumulation product (LAP), Visceral Adiposity Index (VAI), and Body Adiposity Index (BAI). It was observed that 55.5% of women had low serum concentrations of β-carotene (34.9 ± 13.8 µmol/L, p < 0.001) and 43.5% had low concentrations of retinol (0.71 ± 0.3 µmol/L, p < 0.001). Women classified as OI and OII had lower mean values of β-carotene (OI—35.9 ± 4.3 µg/dL: OII—32.0 ± 0.9 µg/dL [p < 0.001]). IAV showed significant negative correlation with retinol (r = −0.73, p < 0.001). Vitamin A deficiency is associated with excess body adiposity in women with the recommended intake of vitamin. Greater body adiposity, especially visceral, was correlated with reduced serum concentrations of vitamin A. Full article
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10 pages, 1473 KiB  
Article
Citrus limon L.-Derived Nanovesicles Show an Inhibitory Effect on Cell Growth in p53-Inactivated Colorectal Cancer Cells via the Macropinocytosis Pathway
by Hideki Takakura, Toshimasa Nakao, Takumi Narita, Mano Horinaka, Yukako Nakao-Ise, Tetsushi Yamamoto, Yosuke Iizumi, Motoki Watanabe, Yoshihiro Sowa, Keisuke Oda, Nobuhiro Mori, Toshiyuki Sakai and Michihiro Mutoh
Biomedicines 2022, 10(6), 1352; https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10061352 - 8 Jun 2022
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 3146
Abstract
Edible plant-derived nanovesicles have been explored as effective materials for preventing colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence, dependent on gene status, as a K-Ras-activating mutation via the macropinocytosis pathway. Approximately 70% of CRC harbors the p53 mutation, which is strongly associated with a poor prognosis [...] Read more.
Edible plant-derived nanovesicles have been explored as effective materials for preventing colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence, dependent on gene status, as a K-Ras-activating mutation via the macropinocytosis pathway. Approximately 70% of CRC harbors the p53 mutation, which is strongly associated with a poor prognosis for CRC. However, it has not been revealed whether p53 inactivation activates the macropinocytosis pathway or not. In this study, we investigated parental cells, wild-type or null for p53 treated with Citrus limon L.-derived nanovesicles, as potential materials for CRC prevention. Using ultracentrifugation, we obtained C. limon L.-derived nanovesicles, the diameters of which were approximately 100 nm, similar to that of the exosomes derived from mammalian cells. C. limon L.-derived nanovesicles showed inhibitory effects on cell growth in not p53-wild, but also in p53-inactivated CRC cells. Furthermore, we revealed that the macropinocytosis pathway is activated by p53 inactivation and C. limon L.-derived nanovesicles were up taken via the macropinocytosis pathway. Notably, although C. limon L.-derived nanovesicles contained citrate, the inhibitory effects of citrate were not dependent on the p53 status. We thus provide a novel mechanism for the growth inhibition of C. limon L.-derived nanovesicles via macropinocytosis and expect to develop a functional food product containing them for preventing p53-inactivation CRC incidence. Full article
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