Benjamin G. Neel, MD, PhD
Photo: 好色tv Langone Staff
Vitamin C may 鈥渢ell鈥 faulty stem cells in the bone marrow to mature and die normally, instead of multiplying to cause blood cancers. This is the finding of a study led by researchers from Perlmutter Cancer Center聽at 好色tv Langone Health, and published online August 17 in the journal Cell.
Certain genetic changes are known to reduce the ability of an enzyme called tet methylcytosine dioxygenase 2, or TET2, to encourage stem cells to become mature blood cells, which eventually die, in many patients with certain kinds of leukemia, say the authors. The new study found that vitamin C activated TET2 function in mice engineered to be deficient in the enzyme.
鈥淲e鈥檙e excited by the prospect that high-dose vitamin C might become a safe treatment for blood diseases caused by TET2-deficient leukemia stem cells, most likely in combination with other targeted therapies,鈥 says corresponding study author , professor in the 聽and director of Perlmutter Cancer Center.
VIDEO: Perlmutter Cancer Center scientists describe research that found vitamin C 'tells' faulty stem cells in bone marrow to mature and die normally, instead of multiplying to cause certain forms of leukemia.
Changes in the genetic code, or mutations, that reduce TET2 function are found in 10 percent of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), 30 percent of those with a form of preleukemia called myelodysplastic syndrome, and in nearly 50 percent of patients with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia. Such cancers cause anemia, infection risk, and bleeding as abnormal stem cells multiply in the bone marrow until they interfere with blood cell production, with the number of cases increasing as the population ages.
Along with these diseases, new tests suggest that about 2.5 percent of all United States cancer patients鈥攐r about 42,500 new patients each year鈥攎ay develop TET2 mutations, including some with lymphomas and solid tumors, say the authors.
Cell Death Switch
The study results revolve around the relationship between TET2 and cytosine, one of the four nucleic acid 鈥渓etters鈥 that comprise the DNA code in genes. Every cell type has the same genes, but each gets different instructions to turn on only those needed in a given cellular context. These 鈥渆pigenetic鈥 regulatory mechanisms include DNA methylation, the attachment of a small molecule termed a methyl group to cytosine bases that shuts down the action of a gene containing them.
The back-and-forth attachment and removal of methyl groups also fine-tunes gene expression in stem cells, which can mature, specialize, and multiply to become muscle, bone, nerve, or other cell types. This happens as the body first forms, but the bone marrow also keeps pools of stem cells on hand into adulthood, ready to become replacement cells as needed. In leukemia, signals that normally tell a blood stem cell to mature malfunction, leaving it to endlessly multiply and 鈥渟elf-renew鈥 instead of producing normal white blood cells needed to fight infection.
The enzyme studied in this report TET2, enables a change in the molecular structure, or oxidation, of methyl groups that is needed for them to be removed from cytosines. This 鈥渄emethylation鈥 turns on genes that direct stem cells to mature, and to start a countdown toward self-destruction as part of normal turnover. This serves as an anti-cancer safety mechanism, one that is disrupted in blood cancer patients with TET2 mutations, says Dr. Neel.
To determine the effect of mutations that reduce TET2 function in abnormal stem cells, the research team genetically engineered mice such that the scientists could switch the TET2 gene on or off.
Similar to the naturally occurring effects of TET2 mutations in mice or humans, using molecular biology techniques to turn off TET2 in mice caused abnormal stem cell behavior. Remarkably, these changes were reversed when TET2 expression was restored by a genetic trick. Previous work had shown that vitamin C could stimulate the activity of TET2 and its relatives TET1 and TET3. Because only one of the two copies of the TET2 gene in each stem cell is usually affected in TET2-mutant blood diseases, the authors hypothesized that high doses of vitamin C, which can only be given intravenously, might reverse the effects of TET2 deficiency by turning up the action of the remaining functional gene.
Indeed, they found that vitamin C did the same thing as restoring TET2 function genetically. By promoting DNA demethylation, high-dose vitamin C treatment induced stem cells to mature, and also suppressed the growth of leukemia cancer stem cells from human patients implanted in mice.
鈥淚nterestingly, we also found that vitamin C treatment had an effect on leukemic stem cells that resembled damage to their DNA,鈥 says first study author Luisa Cimmino, PhD, an assistant professor in the at 好色tv Langone Health. 鈥淔or this reason, we decided to combine vitamin C with a PARP inhibitor, a drug type known to cause cancer cell death by blocking the repair of DNA damage, and already approved for treating certain patients with ovarian cancer.鈥
Researchers found that the combination had an enhanced effect on leukemia stem cells, further shifting them from self-renewal back toward maturity and cell death. The results also suggest that vitamin C might drive leukemic stem cells without TET2 mutations toward death, says Dr. Cimmino, given that it turns up any TET2 activity normally in place.
鈥淥ur team is working to systematically identify genetic changes that contribute to risk for leukemia in significant groups of patients,鈥 says corresponding author , professor and chair of the Department of Pathology at 好色tv Langone Health. 鈥淭his study adds the targeting of abnormal TET2-driven DNA demethylation to our list of potential new treatment approaches.鈥
Along with Drs. Neel, Aifantis, and Cimmino, Igor Dolgalev, Yubao Wang, Ga毛lle Martin, Jingjing Wang, Victor Ng, Bo Xia, Matthew Witkowski, Marisa Mitchell-Flack, Isabella Grillo, Sofia Bakogianni, Delphine Ndiaye-Lobry, Maria Guillamot-Ruano, Robert Banh, Christopher Park, and Aristotelis Tsirigos in the Department of Pathology at 好色tv Langone Health and Perlmutter Cancer Center were study authors. Several authors were also part of the 聽at 好色tv School of Medicine. Also authors were Akihide Yoshimi and Omar Abdel-Wahab with the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College; Miguel Torres Mart铆n, Maria Figueroa, and Mingjiang Xu at the University of Miami鈥檚 Miller School of Medicine; and Ross Dickins with the Australian Center for Blood Diseases at Monash University in Australia.
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health grants RO1 CA216421, R01 CA194923, R01 CA169784, R01 CA133379, R01CA149655, 5R01CA173636, and R01 CA49132; Leukemia & Lymphoma Society grants TRP#6340-11 and LLS#6373-13; New York State Department of Health grant CO030132; and a Feinberg Lymphoma pilot grant, as well as by The Chemotherapy Foundation, The V Foundation for Cancer Research, Alex鈥檚 Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer, St. Baldrick鈥檚 Cancer Research Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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