Vitamin C–filled foods may help with not only the common cold but cancer as well
According to an article published in Future Science, Cancer researcher Benjamin Neel from New York Langone Health and his colleagues have been exploring whether restoring Tet2 function would benefit patients with these disorders.
In their study published in Cell, Neel's team reports that vitamin C treatment mimics Tet2 function and subsequently blocks leukemia progression.
Loss of Tet2 protein function, which regulates transcription and plays an important role in blood cell production, underlies some cases of blood disorders such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), and clonal hematopoiesis, explained Future Science's Natasha Fiera.
“We had been working on an entirely different project on breast cancer, which led me to read a lot about vitamin C,” said Neel. “Vitamin C acts as a cofactor for a large series of enzymes called alpha KG-dependent dioxygenases, of which Tets are members. I had come across a number of papers that indicated that high-dose vitamin C could stimulate Tet activity.”
Based on this idea, the team treated the mice with vitamin C and found that it restored Tet2 function, while simultaneously suppressing human leukemic colony formation and leukemia progression, and driving DNA demethylation.
“Current chemotherapy is not very effective for MDS or AML,” said Neel. “We are now planning a clinical trial to test the efficacy of vitamin C and searching for, or developing other Tet activators.”
Future Science said the study is in clinical trials at the moment.
