Stewart Jubilee R, Artime Marlene C, O'Brian Catherine A
Department of Cancer Biology, University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
J Nutr. 2003 Jul;133(7 Suppl):2440S-2443S. doi: 10.1093/jn/133.7.2440S.
The dietary stilbene resveratrol is a major constituent of a variety of edible plant products, including grapes and peanuts. Resveratrol has been identified as an excellent candidate cancer chemopreventive, based on its safety and efficacy in animal models of carcinogenesis. Resveratrol is a prototype of a plethora of bioactive polyphenols in the food supply that has just begun to be mined for cancer preventive agents. For example, polyphenolic grapeseed fractions were shown recently to potently antagonize chemical carcinogenesis. Taking into consideration that the identification of resveratrol as a cancer preventive agent is largely owed to its high abundance in nature (e.g., it accounts for 5-10% of the grapeskin biomass), it is logical to expect that naturally occurring stilbenes that are superior to resveratrol in their cancer preventive properties await identification. Thus, resveratrol may represent the tip of the iceberg of a broad class of stilbene and related polyphenolic natural products that include safe and highly effective agents for cancer prevention. We hypothesize that resveratrol may be especially suitable as a lead agent for prostate cancer prevention given its ability to: 1) inhibit each stage of multistage carcinogenesis, 2) scavenge incipient populations of androgen-dependent prostate cancer cells through androgen receptor antagonism, and 3) scavenge incipient populations of androgen-independent prostate cancer cells by short-circuiting the epidermal growth factor-receptor (EGFR)-dependent autocrine loops in the cancer cells.
膳食芪类白藜芦醇是多种可食用植物产品（包括葡萄和花生）的主要成分。基于其在致癌动物模型中的安全性和有效性，白藜芦醇已被确定为一种优秀的癌症化学预防候选物。白藜芦醇是食物供应中大量生物活性多酚的原型，而这类多酚刚刚开始被挖掘用于寻找癌症预防剂。例如，最近研究表明多酚类葡萄籽提取物能有效拮抗化学致癌作用。鉴于白藜芦醇作为癌症预防剂的发现很大程度上归因于其在自然界中的高含量（例如，它占葡萄皮生物量的5 - 10%），因此可以合理推测，在癌症预防特性方面优于白藜芦醇的天然芪类物质有待发现。因此，白藜芦醇可能只是一大类芪类及相关多酚类天然产物的冰山一角，这类天然产物包括安全且高效的癌症预防剂。我们推测，鉴于白藜芦醇具有以下能力，它可能特别适合作为预防前列腺癌的先导药物：1）抑制多阶段致癌作用的各个阶段；2）通过雄激素受体拮抗作用清除雄激素依赖性前列腺癌细胞的初期群体；3）通过绕过癌细胞中表皮生长因子受体（EGFR）依赖性自分泌环来清除雄激素非依赖性前列腺癌细胞的初期群体。
