Journal of Functional Foods (Sep 2018)

Endogenous n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids prevent azoxymethane-induced colon tumorigenesis in mice fed a high-fat diet

  • An-Jun Yao,
  • Jia-Hui Chen,
  • Yan Xu,
  • Zhuang-Wei Zhang,
  • Zu-Quan Zou,
  • Hai-Tao Yang,
  • Qi-Hang Hua,
  • Jin-Shun Zhao,
  • Jing-Xuan Kang,
  • Xiao-Hong Zhang

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 48
pp. 439 – 447

Abstract

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Literature suggests important roles of a high-fat diet (HFD) in tumour development, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study assessed the protective effect of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) on HFD-enhanced colon tumours and the underlying mechanism. WT mice were fed a normal fat diet or HFD and Fat-1 mice were fed a HFD for 22 weeks. For weeks 1–6, all mice were intraperitoneally administered AOM weekly. HFD significantly enhanced AOM-induced colon tumorigenesis in WT mice; however, tumour incidence and multiplicity were markedly lower in Fat-1 mice. HFD-triggered tumour development involved the activation of inflammatory signalling pathways, including TNF-α/NF-κB, IL-6/STAT3, and downstream NLRP3/IL-1β pathways and upregulation of β-catenin/c-myc pathway, which is associated with cancer cell proliferation. n-3 PUFAs inhibited colon tumour development and mitigated the changes to the aforementioned inflammatory pathways and oncogenic signalling. We provide experimental evidence for the role of n-3 PUFAs as potential chemopreventive agents against colon cancer.

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