Center for Advanced Microscopy CMA BIO BIO, Faculty of Biological Sciences University of Concepcion, Concepción 4030000, Chile
Rocío Magdalena
Laboratory of Neurobiology and Stem Cells NeuroCellT, Department of Cellular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Concepcion, Concepción 4030000, Chile
María Jose Barahona
Center for Advanced Microscopy CMA BIO BIO, Faculty of Biological Sciences University of Concepcion, Concepción 4030000, Chile
Eder Ramírez
Laboratory of Neurobiology and Stem Cells NeuroCellT, Department of Cellular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Concepcion, Concepción 4030000, Chile
Cristian Sanzana
Laboratory of Neurobiology and Stem Cells NeuroCellT, Department of Cellular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Concepcion, Concepción 4030000, Chile
José Gutiérrez
Laboratory of Transcriptional Regulation, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Concepcion, Concepción 4030000, Chile
Francisco Nualart
Center for Advanced Microscopy CMA BIO BIO, Faculty of Biological Sciences University of Concepcion, Concepción 4030000, Chile
Historically, vitamin C has been associated with many regulatory processes that involve specific signaling pathways. Among the most studied signaling pathways are those involved in the regulation of aging, differentiation, neurotransmission, proliferation, and cell death processes in cancer. This wide variety of regulatory effects is due to the fact that vitamin C has a dual mechanism of action. On the one hand, it regulates the expression of genes associated with proliferation (Ccnf and Ccnb1), differentiation (Sox-2 and Oct-4), and cell death (RIPK1 and Bcl-2). At the same time, vitamin C can act as a regulator of kinases, such as MAPK and p38, or by controlling the activation of the NF-kB pathway, generating chronic responses related to changes in gene expression or acute responses associated with the regulation of signal transduction processes. To date, data from the literature show a permanent increase in processes regulated by vitamin C. In this review, we critically examine how vitamin C regulates these different cellular programs in normal and tumor cells.