Colorectal cancer is a major health problem worldwide with urgent need for new and effective anti-cancer approaches that allow treating, increasing survival and improving life quality of patients. At pharmacological concentrations, ascorbic acid (AA) exerts a selective cytotoxic effect, whose mechanism of cytotoxicity remains unsolved. It has been suggested that it depends on the production of extracellular hydrogen peroxide, using ascorbate radical as an intermediate. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects induced by AA in three colon cancer cell lines, as well as, possible cell death mechanisms involved. Our results showed that pharmacological concentrations of AA induce anti-proliferative, cytotoxic and genotoxic effects on three colon cancer cell lines under study. We also found that AA can induce cell death by an increment of oxidative stress, but also mediating a ROS-independent mechanism, as observed in LS1034 cells. This work explores AA anti-tumoral effects and highlights its applicability in the treatment of CC, underlying the importance of proceeding to clinical trials.

中文翻译：

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抗坏血酸和结肠癌：根据细胞概况，对细胞死亡的氧化刺激。

大肠癌是世界范围内的主要健康问题，迫切需要新的有效的抗癌方法，以允许治疗，增加生存率并改善患者的生活质量。在药理学浓度下，抗坏血酸（AA）发挥选择性的细胞毒性作用，其细胞毒性机制仍未解决。已经提出，这取决于使用抗坏血酸酯基团作为中间体的细胞外过氧化氢的产生。这项研究的目的是评估AA诱导的三种结肠癌细胞系的作用，以及可能涉及的细胞死亡机制。我们的结果表明，药理学浓度的AA对三种正在研究的结肠癌细胞系具有抗增殖，细胞毒性和遗传毒性作用。我们还发现，正如LS1034细胞中所观察到的，AA可以通过增加氧化应激来诱导细胞死亡，而且还可以介导ROS独立机制。这项工作探讨了抗AA的抗肿瘤作用，并强调了其在CC治疗中的适用性，这是进行临床试验的重要性。