Abstract
Colon cancer (CC) is the third common neoplasm worldwide, and it is still a big challenge for exploring new effective medicine for treating CC. Natural product promoting human health has become a hot topic and attracted many researchers recently. Pectin, a complex polysaccharide in plant cell wall, mainly consists of four major types of polysaccharides: homogalacturonan, xylogalacturonan, rhamnogalacturonan I and II, all of which can be degraded into various pectin oligosaccharides (POS) and may provide abundant resource for exploring potential anticancer drugs. POS have been regarded as a novel class of potential functional food with multiple health-promoting properties. POS have antibacterial activities against some aggressive and recurrent bacterial infection and exert beneficial immunomodulation for controlling CC risk. However, the molecular functional role of POS in the prevention of CC risk and progression remains doubtful. The review focuses on antioxidant and anti-inflammatory roles of POS for promoting human health by regulating some potential oxidative and inflammation-activated pathways, such as ATP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor-2 (Nrf2), and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) pathways. The activation of these signaling pathways increases the antioxidant and antiinflammatory activities, which will result in the apoptosis of CC cells or in the prevention of CC risk and progression. Thus, POS may inhibit CC development by affecting antioxidant and antiinflammatory signaling pathways AMPK, Nrf2, and NF-κB. However, POS also can activate signal transduction and transcriptional activator 1 and 3 signaling pathway, which will reduce antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and promote CC progression. Specific structural and structurally modified POS may be associated with their functions and should be deeply explored in the future. The present review paper lacks the important information for the linkage between the specific structure of POS and its function. To further explore the effects of prebiotic potential of POS and their derivatives on human immunomodulation in the prevention of CC, the specific POS with a certain degree of polymerization or purified polymers are highly demanded to be performed in clinical practice.
Highlights
Colon cancer (CC) is one of the third common cancers with more than 600,000 deaths worldwide yearly and causes a global burden [1]
Pectin is the source of Pectin oligosaccharides (POS) in natural products and mainly exists in citrus peel [it mainly consists of a homopolymer of 1–34-linked os-d-galactosyluronic acid with 85.7% methylated esterification and a rhamnogalacturonan I (RG-I) fragment] [38], sugar beet pulp [39], potato pulp [21, 40], and additional sources, etc
The present review provides signaling-pathway molecular mecha nism of POS, which is different current widely accepted thoughts for pectin: pectin as a dietary fiber [146], pH-modified pectin [42], modified pectin to avoid chemoresistance [147], and pectin as a drug delivery system in tumor therapy [148]
Summary
Colon cancer (CC) is one of the third common cancers with more than 600,000 deaths worldwide yearly and causes a global burden [1]. Pectin oligosaccharides (POS) belong to new potential prebiotics with various health-promoting effects [7, 8], such as against Shiga toxins [9] and pathogen binding [10], induction of apoptosis of human colonic adenocarcinoma cells [11], immunomodulation [12, 13], and cardiovascular protection [14]. Pectin oligosaccharides can stimulate apoptosis process in human colonic adenocarcinoma cells, show protective functions for cardiovascular tissues, reduce the damage caused by metals, and have anti-obesity effects, antitoxic, antibacterial, and antioxidant activities [20]. Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities of functional foods will be beneficial in the prevention of the risk of colon carcinoma [36, 37]. This work provides a new window for the possible effects of POS on antioxidant and anti-inflammatory signaling pathways
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