Article
DNA protective effects of vitamin C in human mucosal cell cultures
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Published: | August 8, 2007 |
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Background: Epidemiologic studies suggest, that an antioxidants rich diet lowers the risk for certain cancers. In our study, vitamin C, the most abundant dietary antioxidant was tested on its protective effects towards oxidative induced DNA damage in human mucosal cell cultures. Material and methods: Miniorgancultures (MOC) were produced out of oropharyngeal mucosa samples, resected during surgery. MOC were incubated on three following days with vitamin C (10 µM and 100 µM) for 30 minutes. On the third day oxidative DNA damage was induced incubating MOC with hydrogenperoxide for 30 minutes. Resulting DNA fragmentation was evaluated using the formamidopyrimidin glycosylase comet assay, a highly sensitive method for the detection of oxidative damaged DNA.
Results: Preincubation of MOC with vitamin C reduced the hydrogenperoxide induced DNA fragmentation in a dosis dependent manner for more than a half. Discussion: Since in a previous study preincubation of human lymphocytes with vitamin C led to contradictory results, these tests with mucosal cell cultures clearly show the protective effects. These results contribute to the further understanding of epidemiological proved chemopreventive action of vitamin C and underline the importance of such experiments on human target tissue.