Affiliations: School of Agricultural Biotechnology and Center for
Agricultural Biomaterials, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul
National University, Gwanak-gu, Korea
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Hyong Joo Lee, Ph.D., Department of
Food Science and Technology, School of Agricultural Biotechnology and Center
for Agricultural Biomaterials, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul
National University, San 56-1, Shillim-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Republic
of Korea. Tel.: +82 2 880 4853; Fax: +82 2 873 5095; E-mail: leehyjo@snu.ac.kr
Abstract: Cruciferous vegetables contain a series of relatively unique
secondary metabolites of amino acids, called glucosinolates, from which
isothiocyanates (ITC) can be generated. While glucosinolates are not thought to
be bioactive directly, ITC appear to have anticarcinogenic activity. Sinigrin,
the predominant aliphatic glucosinolate in cruciferous vegetables, is
hydrolyzed to yield allylisothiocyanate (AITC), which, following absorption and
metabolism in humans, is excreted in the urine as an N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC)
conjugate. AITC possesses numerous biochemical and physiological activities.
This study examined the induction of quinine reductase (QR) by AITC and
synthetic AITC-NAC in Hepa1c1c7 murine hepatoma cells. AITC and AITC-NAC
inhibited cell growth in a dose-dependent manner. The induction of QR activity
and QR mRNA expression was dose-responsive over a range of 0.1–2.5 μM. AITC
caused 2.0- and 3.1-fold inductions of QR with 1- and 2-μM
treatments, respectively. By comparison, 1 and 2 μM AITC-NAC caused 2.9- and
3.7-fold inductions of QR, respectively. Considering the potential of ITC to
prevent cancer, these results provide a basis for the use of NAC-ITC conjugates
as chemopreventive agents.
