Natural products and their derivatives provide an attractive source for novel preventive and therapeutic agents.Epidemiological studies have indicated that the low incidence of breast cancer in Asian women may be rela...Natural products and their derivatives provide an attractive source for novel preventive and therapeutic agents.Epidemiological studies have indicated that the low incidence of breast cancer in Asian women may be related to a high consumption of soy foods.Equol,a metabolite of the soybean isoflavone daidzein,has been suggested to have preventive and therapeutic activity for breast cancer.However,conflicting data have been reported.There are two optical isomers of equol,S-equol and R-equol,with S-equol appearing to be the clinically-relevant compound.While equol is considered to be a selective estrogen receptor modulator,the molecular mechanisms underlying the biological activities of equol have not been fully elucidated.In addition,only part of the population can metabolize daidzein into equol due to differences in gut flora.This article will help provide a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the anti-(or potentially pro-)cancer and invasion activities of this unique secondary metabolite of a natural product,and will provide a basis for the development of equol and/or its analogs as novel cancer preventive or therapeutic agents.展开更多
基金an NSFC grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.81171991)to Hong Xia XuNational Natural Science Foundation of China(No.81603347)to Zong Liang Lu.
文摘Natural products and their derivatives provide an attractive source for novel preventive and therapeutic agents.Epidemiological studies have indicated that the low incidence of breast cancer in Asian women may be related to a high consumption of soy foods.Equol,a metabolite of the soybean isoflavone daidzein,has been suggested to have preventive and therapeutic activity for breast cancer.However,conflicting data have been reported.There are two optical isomers of equol,S-equol and R-equol,with S-equol appearing to be the clinically-relevant compound.While equol is considered to be a selective estrogen receptor modulator,the molecular mechanisms underlying the biological activities of equol have not been fully elucidated.In addition,only part of the population can metabolize daidzein into equol due to differences in gut flora.This article will help provide a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the anti-(or potentially pro-)cancer and invasion activities of this unique secondary metabolite of a natural product,and will provide a basis for the development of equol and/or its analogs as novel cancer preventive or therapeutic agents.
