Diallyl trisulfide (DATS) is a garlic organosulfide that is toxic to cancer cells, however, little is known about its effect in the initiation phase of carcinogenesis. We sought to determine whether DATS could inhibit the carcinogen, benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), from inducing precancerous activity, in vitro. MCF-10A cells were either pre-treated (PreTx) or concurrently treated (CoTx) with 1 μM BaP, and 6 or 60 μM DATS for up to 24 hours. The DATS 6 and 60 μM CoTx inhibited BaP-induced cell proliferation by an average of 71.1 and 120.8%, respectively, at 6 hours. The 60 μM DATS pretreatment decreased BaP-induced G2/M cell cycle transition by 127 %, and reduced the increase in cells in the S-phase by 42%; whereas 60 μM DATS CoTx induced a 177% increase in cells in G1. DATS effectively inhibited (P<0.001) BaP-induced peroxide formation by at least 54%, which may have prevented the formation of BaP-induced DNA strand breaks. In this study, we reveal mechanisms involved in DATS inhibition of BaP-induced carcinogenesis, including inhibition of cell proliferation, regulation of cell cycle, attenuation of ROS formation, and inhibition of DNA damage. At the doses evaluated, DATS appears to be an effective attenuator of BaP-induced breast carcinogenesis, in vitro.

Diallyl disulfide (DADS), a garlic organosulfur compound (OSC), has been researched as a cancer prevention agent; however, the role of DADS in the suppression of cancer initiation in non-neoplastic cells has not been elucidated. To evaluate DADS inhibition of early carcinogenic events, MCF-10A cells were pretreated (PreTx) with DADS followed by the ubiquitous carcinogen benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), or co-treated (CoTx) with DADS and BaP for up to 24 hours. The cells were evaluated for changes in cell viability/proliferation, cell cycle, induction of peroxide formation, and DNA damage. BaP induced a statistically significant increase in cell proliferation at 6 hours, which was attenuated with DADS CoTx. PreTx with 6 and 60 μM of DADS inhibited BaP-induced G2/M arrest by 68 and 78%, respectively. DADS, regardless of concentration or method, inhibited BaP-induced extracellular aqueous peroxide formation within 24 hours. DADS attenuated BaP-induced DNA single strand breaks at all time points through both DADS Pre- and CoTx, with significant inhibition for all treatments sustained after 6 hours. DADS was effective in inhibiting BaP-induced cell proliferation, cell cycle transitions, ROS, and DNA damage in a normal cell line, and thus may inhibit environmentally induced breast cancer initiation.

Garlic has long been used medicinally for many diseases, including cancer. One of the active garlic components is diallyl sulfide (DAS), which prevents carcinogenesis and reduces the incidence rate of several cancers. In this study, non-cancerous MCF-10A cells were used as a model to investigate the effect of DAS on Benzo (a)pyrene (BaP)-induced cellular carcinogenesis. The cells were evaluated based on changes in proliferation, cell cycle arrest, the formation of peroxides, 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) levels, the generation of DNA strand breaks, and DNA Polymerase β (Pol β) expression. The results obtained indicate that when co-treated with BaP, DAS inhibited BaP-induced cell proliferation (p < 0.05) to levels similar to the negative control. BaP treatment results in a two-fold increase in the accumulation of cells in the G2/M-phase of the cell cycle, which is restored to baseline levels, similar to untreated cells and vehicle-treated cells, when pretreated with 6 μM and 60 μM DAS, respectively. Co-treatment with DAS (60 μM and 600 μM) inhibited BaP-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation by 132% and 133%, respectively, as determined by the accumulation of H2O2 in the extracellular medium and an increase in 8-OHdG levels of treated cells. All DAS concentrations inhibited BaP-induced DNA strand breaks through co-treatment and pre-treatment methods at all time points evaluated. Co-Treatment with 60 μM DAS increased DNA Pol β expression in response to BaP-induced lipid peroxidation and oxidative DNA damage. These results indicate that DAS effectively inhibited BaP-induced cell proliferation, cell cycle transitions, ROS, and DNA damage in an MCF-10A cell line. These results provide more experimental evidence for garlic’s antitumor abilities and corroborate many epidemiological studies regarding the association between the increased intake of garlic and the reduced risk of several types of cancer.

Diethylstilbestrol (DES), a known human carcinogen and synthetic nonsteroidal estrogen has been shown to cause pituitary, breast and cervix cancers. DES has been shown to produce mammary tumors and double strand breaks in rats and induce breast cancer in humans. Diallyl sulfide (DAS), a garlic organosulfur compound (OSC) has been shown to inhibit chemical carcinogenesis in animals. OSCs like DAS are known to decrease proliferation of cancer cells by delaying cell cycle progression. The effect of DAS on the proliferation of stroma breast tissue by DES is not fully elucidated. This study will determine the proliferative properties of DAS in breast stroma of DES induced female ACI rats by examining Cdc25a and ATM expression. Female ACI rats were treated for 6 months with corn oil (control), 10mg/kg DES and/or .01mg/g DAS. RNA was isolated from breast tissue using trizol and converted to cDNA using Stratagene first strand cDNA synthesis reaction. Gene expression profiles were determined using Super Array pathway finder and confirmed with real time RT‐PCR. Cdc25a and ATM expression in the DES treated group is decreased significantly compared to the control group. Cdc25a shows an increase in the fold change in the DES/DAS group as compared to the control. We conclude that the decreased Cdc25a expression in the DES treated group may induce cell cycle arrest while the co‐treated group is approaching the level of the control.Funded by RCMI Grant #2G12RR03020‐24

Metastatic disease -end stage of tumor progression- is the major cause of cancer-related death.It is widely accepted that malignant cell plasticity between epithelial-mesenchymal-transition (EMT) and mesenchymal-epithelial-transition (MET) is required for metastasis to occur. The classical model of metastasis suggests tumor cell dissemination occur late in tumor development, however emerging studies strongly indicates that dissemination is an early process and provide a striking evidence that tumor cells start to disseminate during the initial steps of tumor development. Late appearing metastases arise from these early-disseminated tumor cells. The mechanism by which some early-disseminated tumor cells colonize and generate metastatic growth while some remain dormant is not well known. In order to understand the underlying factors, we utilized murine mammary tumors (4T1 as metastatic and EMT6 as less metastatic) in a syngeneic mouse model. We performed time course experiments to determine the early factors that may contribute to the metastatic growth. 4T1 or EMT6 tumor cells were implanted orthotopically into the fat pads and tumor cell dissemination was analyzed over 3 weeks time points. We determined that both 4T1 and EMT tumor cells disseminated as early as one week post-implantation, however only 4T1 tumor cells develop metastasis in distant organs. Furthermore, we also resected primary tumors 1,2 and 3 week post implantation of EMT6-Luci or 4T1-Luci tumors and observed distant metastasis via optical imaging of luciferase expression in live animals. Although the majority of 4T1 tumor bearing mice (&gt;80%) develop pulmonary metastasis when 4T1 tumors resected 2 and 3 weeks post-implantation, only 10% of mice develop metastasis when primary tumor resected one week post implantation. In contrast, EMT6 tumors following resection only relapsed in the primary tumor site but failed to develop metastasis. We investigated the possible mechanism of efficient pulmonary metastatic growth following the resection of tumors 2-3 week post implantation. Interestingly we found a significant infiltration of granulocytic subset of myeloid derived suppressor cells (g-MDSC) in 4T1 tumor bearing mice by week 2 and 3. Furthermore, we found that lung infiltrated g-MDSCs promote tumor cell growth via paracrine factors. In co-culture studies we found that there is a reciprocal secretion of panel of inflammatory cytokines, growth factors and matrix metalloproteases between tumor cell and g-MDSCs suggesting that these cells in the lung microenvironment support the metastatic growth. Our studies provide a new paradigm in the understanding of metastatic growth and the role of microenvironment in distant organs. Citation Format: Raziye Piranlioglu, Maria Ouzounova, Eunmi Lee, Alicia Hudson, Sumeyye Korkaya, Ali Arbab, Hasan Korkaya. Immune regulation of tumor dormancy in syngeneic mouse model. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 908.