Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
J Med Food. 2010 Dec;13(6):1347-54. doi: 10.1089/jmf.2010.1191.
The rhizome of ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) has been reputed to have many curative properties in traditional medicine, and recent publications have also shown that many agents in ginger possess anticancer properties. Here we show that the ethyl acetate fraction of ginger extract can inhibit the expression of the two prominent molecular targets of cancer, the human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) and c-Myc, in A549 lung cancer cells in a time- and concentration-dependent manner. The treated cells exhibited diminished telomerase activity because of reduced protein production rather than direct inhibition of telomerase. The reduction of hTERT expression coincided with the reduction of c-Myc expression, which is one of the hTERT transcription factors; thus, the reduction in hTERT expression might be due in part to the decrease of c-Myc. As both telomerase inhibition and Myc inhibition are cancer-specific targets for cancer therapy, ginger extract might prove to be beneficial as a complementary agent in cancer prevention and maintenance therapy.
生姜（Zingiber officinale Roscoe）的根茎在传统医学中一直被认为具有许多治疗特性，最近的出版物也表明，生姜中的许多物质具有抗癌特性。在这里，我们发现生姜提取物的乙酸乙酯部分可以时间和浓度依赖性地抑制肺癌细胞 A549 中两个突出的癌症分子靶标，即人类端粒酶逆转录酶（hTERT）和 c-Myc 的表达。由于蛋白产量降低而非端粒酶的直接抑制，处理后的细胞中端粒酶活性降低。hTERT 表达的减少与 c-Myc 表达的减少同时发生，c-Myc 是 hTERT 的转录因子之一；因此，hTERT 表达的减少部分可能是由于 c-Myc 的减少。由于端粒酶抑制和 Myc 抑制都是癌症治疗的特定靶点，因此生姜提取物可能被证明是癌症预防和维持治疗的有益补充剂。
