Malignant tumors due to insufficient vitamin B6. An Italian study published in ‘Cell Death & Disease’ has clarified the mechanisms at the origin of this dangerous relationship, discovering that vitamin B6 deficiency is capable of transforming benign tumors that express the RasV12 oncogene, a gene linked to the formation of neoplasms, in more aggressive forms of cancer that produce metastases. The results of the research, coordinated by Sapienza University and the Santa Lucia Foundation of Rome, are published in ‘Cell Death & Disease’.
Vitamin B6 is a water-soluble compound with antioxidant properties – they explain from Sapienza – which makes the activity of enzymes involved in 4% of metabolic reactions possible. For this reason, within the delicate cellular balance, a deficiency of this substance causes, among other things, DNA damage and chromosomal aberrations. Scientists from the ‘Charles Darwin’ and ‘Alessandro Rossi Fanelli’ Departments of Biology and Biotechnology and ‘Alessandro Rossi Fanelli’ Biochemical Sciences at Sapienza University and the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory of the Santa Lucia Foundation have demonstrated for the first time in vivo the correlation between vitamin B6 deficiency, genomic damage and oxidative stress in tumor cells.
To do this, the researchers used Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly. Through appropriate genetic crosses, they obtained Drosophila larvae that simultaneously expressed the Ras oncogene, which causes benign tumors, and a green fluorescent protein that allowed them to easily follow the tumor masses and any metastases arising from the primary tumor. These larvae, treated with a specific vitamin B6 inhibitor to reduce its concentration, were then examined to evaluate the effects of the deficiency on the tumor phenotype. The scholars thus observed that vitamin deficiency could transform tumors from benign to malignant.
From the authors a model to analyze the effect of nutritional deficits on cancer risk
In addition to the innumerable advantages associated with the use of the fruit fly as an experimental model for genetic studies – the authors highlight – the use of Drosophila as a model organism for the study of metabolism and its impact on cancer is extremely advantageous because the insect possesses the majority of metabolic pathways that in humans are at the basis of tumors. Therefore, this experimental investigation model may be used in the future to study the impact of the lack of other micronutrients on the processes of tumor formation and metastasis.
Although the condition of primary vitamin B6 deficiency in developed countries is rare, since it is present in most foods – the scientists point out – secondary deficiencies resulting from drugs, alcohol abuse or pathologies such as diabetes and malabsorption syndromes are frequent . Therefore, applied to humans, the new results suggest the importance of evaluating genome integrity as a predictive biomarker in all those contexts in which vitamin B6 is reduced. Furthermore, the impact of diet on cancer is a topic of general interest that must also be disclosed to promote prevention.
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