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Sang-Woon Choi, Simonetta Friso

Interactions between folate and aging for carcinogenesis

Keywords: aging, carcinogenesis, DNA methylation, folate, one-carbon metabolism, uracil misincorporation into DNA

Inadequate folate intake and aging are each strongly implicated as important risk factors for certain cancers. Since both folate depletion and aging are strongly associated with hyperhomocysteinemia, genomic DNA hypomethylation, and increased uracil misincorporation into DNA, it appears that each of them enhances carcinogenesis by inducing a derangement of one-carbon metabolism that supplies one-carbons to biological methylation reactions and nucleotide synthesis. Recent studies have demonstrated that inadequate dietary folate and aging may interact and synergistically disturb the normal homeostasis of one-carbon metabolism, thereby provoking subsequent biochemical and molecular aberrations, including alterations in critical gene expression related to carcinogenesis. These studies have further indicated that modest folate supplementation may reverse or partially ameliorate those adverse effects induced by folate depletion and aging.

Clinical Chemical Laboratory Medicine, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 1434-6621
Volume: 43, 10/2005
Pages: 1151 - 1157

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