Modulatory Effect of Vitamin C on Hypoxia Induced Breast Cancer Stem Cells.

Purpose: Eliminating cancer stem cells (CSCs) is a challenge because of their enhanced resistance to anti-cancer drugs. Vitamin C, which is insufficient in patients with higher stages of cancer, has been gaining attention as a potential treatment for human malignancies. Hence this study aimed to analyze the effect of high-dose vitamin C treatment on the gene expression level of HIF-1α , NF-κB1 , BAX , and DNMT1 in the MCF7 cells undergoing hypoxia, as an inducer of CSCs characteristics. As a result, vitamin C could be possibly used as a promising therapeutic adjuvant.
Methods: Here we first analyzed the breast CSC population alteration in MCF7 cells following hypoxia induction. Then, we evaluated the impact of vitamin C treatment on the gene expression level of four stemness-related genes in hypoxic MCF7 cells.
Results: Our results indicate that vitamin C could reduce proliferation and stemness states in CSCs possibly by induction of apoptotic markers such as BAX , along with attenuating stemness markers, including NF-κB1 , and DNMT1 gene expressions.
Conclusion: According to our findings, vitamin C administration would become a new approach to avoiding the stimulation of CSCs during cancer therapies.
Competing Interests: The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
(©2023 The Authors.)