Researchers from the University of Concepción (Chile) have discovered that cancer cells satisfy their nutritional by ingesting recycled vitamin C. As described in a paper published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine, it is a key mechanism that these cells use to survive.

The research details how cancer cells acquire oxidized vitamin C (dehydroascorbic acid or DHA), which is found in high concentrations around tumors, transports it inside and converts it into reduced vitamin C, (AA, ascorbic acid), which has an antioxidant function.

“We discovered an unexpected characteristic of tumor cells: they are capable of accumulating large amounts of vitamin C inside them, compared to normal cells,” explains Dr. Coralia Rivas, director of the research.

“We tested tumor cells from breasts, prostate, leukemia, and all these cell lines fulfilled this characteristic,” says the researcher. For Dr. Rivas, the most important thing is that this mechanism means that vitamin C, as an antioxidant, “would be protecting the tumor cells.”

Unlike normal cells, tumor cells have a transporter that takes this reduced vitamin C and carries it to the mitochondria (responsible for supplying energy for cellular activity). “It is a mechanism by which tumor cells become immortal, despite being surrounded by oxidizing signals that would otherwise induce their death,” says Carola Muñoz, PhD in Biological Sciences and member of the research team.

The transporter, called SVCT2, “would allow the mitochondria of the tumor to transfer the vitamin to its interior and, in this way, avoid the death of the cancer cell,” adds Muñoz, who noted that this transporter is located inside the cell and not on the surface, as expected.

Dr. Rivas said the next step of the research is to create a pharmacological solution that inhibits the transportation of the vitamin inside tumor cells, which means finding molecules that can serve to block the entry of vitamin C to the mitochondria.

Vitamin C must be part of our diet

“It is not about removing vitamin C from the diet, but what we have to do is eliminate the ability of the cell to survive using this mechanism,” says Muñoz. Vitamin C “is a fundamental element for any living being, and in the case of humans, yes or yes, it must be in the diet,” Dr. Rivas said. By eliminating it from your diet “you will rather cause an extremely complicated disease and you be left unprotected,” warns the scientist.

 

Source: Agencia ID