Title: Flax lignan and its mammalian lignans for breast cancer prevention, and adjunct therapy to halt metastasis

Biography:

Mahabaleshwar Hegde re red as Professor of Biochemistry, with 33 years of teaching MSc, guiding MPhil, PhD students at Pune University, and later, MPharm, MD, MS, PhD students at Bhara  Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University) Pune. Previously in his career, he took training in Molecular Biology, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine New York and appointed as Visi ng Scien st at Memorial Sloan Ke ering Cancer Centre at New York. In order to a ain much needed omega-3 nutri onal security, he developed “Flax Bio-Village Concept” for promo ng fl ax agriculture in the country, for enriching commonly consumed food egg, milk, chicken etc with omega-3 fa y acids. In order to add further value to fl ax seed, he has also focused his research and development ac vi es on isola on of fl ax lignan, for its cardioprotec ve, an -breast cancer, an -metasta c ac vi es.
 

Abstract

Some cells in our body, under extreme distress condi on, somehow, manage to defeat universal law of entropy, and a ain a state of permanent order to escape death and become immortal that we call cancer. Life is order and disorder leads to disease and death. With the excessive produc on of free radicals, mul ple damage to the DNA, the cell may develop a mechanism of escaping death by becoming cancerous, a state of immortality. Cancer cells grow very fast. They manage to keep their cells in ever reducing condi on and evade telomere shortening, thereby defeat entropy in much more effi  cient manner, than normal cell to a ain, a no death situa on. When the place of their origin also becomes not conducive for faster growth they metastasize to fi nd a new home. Breast cancer is the most common malignant disease in women and the majority of deaths from breast cancer are due to the metastasis to other organs in the body. About 20% of breast cancer pa ents are diagnosed with a subtype of breast cancer known as triple nega ve breast cancer (TNBC). Due to lack of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) and signifi cant heterogeneity, among TNBC, no approved targeted therapies are available. There is a strong epidemiological evidence that fl ax lignan provides protec on against breast cancer. The Secoisolaricinol Digycoside (SDG), a phytoestrogen, found in fl ax seed coat is a very strong an oxidant ac vity, has cardioprotec ve and its mammalian lignan, enterolactone (EL), and has an -breast cancer and an
metasta c ac vi es. Some previous studies have shown that fl axseed can inhibit the spontaneous metastasis of the estrogen receptor nega ve (ER−) human breast cancer MDA-MB-435 cells in nude mice and the experimental lung metastasis of murine melanoma B16BL6 cells in mice. Lignans and tamoxifen (TAM), in combina on can inhibit the steps involved in the metastasis cascade. We have shown that EL exerts its an -metasta c ac vity by inhibi ng uPA-plamin MMP’s induced ECM remodelling and also by preven ng TGF β induced EMT by blocking ERK/NFkβ/snail signalling pathway(9). Our results reaffi  rm the poten al of both SDG and its derived mammalian lignan EL for both an -breast cancer as well as an -metasta c ac vi es. In several human cell culture studies, EL was found to exhibit a host of ac vi es including chemopreven ve, an prolifera ve, apopto c, an metasta c, immunomodulatory, chemosensi zing and radiosensi zing in breast cancer cell lines Therefore, SDG concentrate obtainable from our Flax Biovillage concept, can be a very useful to serve as adjunct nutri onal therapy, a er chemo/ radio therapy to prevent metastasis and / or recurrence of breast cancer