Lycopene Extracts from Different Tomato-Based Food Products Induce Apoptosis in Cultured Human Primary Prostate Cancer Cells and Regulate TP53, Bax and Bcl-2 Transcript Expression

Document Type : Research Articles

Authors

1 Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência de Alimentos, Instituto de Química, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2 Núcleo de Bioquímica Nutricional, Laboratório de Alimentos Funcionais e Biotecnologia, Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

3 Fundação Centro Universitário Estadual da Zona Oeste, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

4 Programa de Biologia Celular, Coordenação de Pesquisa, Instituto Nacional de Câncer José Alencar Gomes da Silva, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

5 Instituto de Humanidades e Saúde, Departamento de Ciências da Natureza, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

6 Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

7 Centro de Medicina Regenerativa, Faculdade de Medicina de Petrópolis - FASE, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

 
Carotenoids are the main tomato components, especially lycopene. Lycopene is more bioavailable in tomato processed products than in raw tomatos, since formation of lycopene cis-isomers during food processing and storage may increase its biological activity. In the current study, we evaluated the influence of lycopene extracts (5 mg / mL) from different tomato-based food products (paste, sauce, extract and ketchup) on cell viability and apoptosis on primary human prostate cancer cells (PCa cels) for 96h. Using MTT assay, we observed a significant decrease on primary PCa cell viability upon treatment with lycopene extracted from either 4 tomato-based food products. Flow cytometeric analysis revealed that lycopene from tomato extract and tomato sauce promoted up to fifty-fold increase on the proportion of apoptotic cells, when compared to the control group. Using real time PCR assay, we found that lycopene promoted an upregulation of TP53 and Bax transcript expression and also downregulation of Bcl-2 expression in PCa cells. In conclusion, our data demostrate that cis-lycopene promoted a significant inhibition on primary PCa cell viability, as well as an increase on their apoptotic rates, evidencing that cis-lycopene contained in tomato sauce and extract cain mainly modulate of primary human prostate cancer cell survival.

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