Resveratrol, which is found in red wine, could prevent a variety of cancers in patients with Fanconi anemia, a rare genetic disorder, according to researchers at the University of Colorado Cancer Center.
Fanconi anemia, which affects one in 350,000 babies, leaves cells unable to repair damaged DNA. This puts Fanconi anemia patients at high risk for developing a variety of cancers, especially leukemias and head and neck cancer, according to a press release.
The condition also prevents the use of a class of cancer drugs -- namely, mitomycin C -- by encouraging DNA to cross-link together. Generally, healthy cells can repair a few cross-links, whereas cancer cells cannot and so are killed. However, Fanconi anemia patients are unable to repair the damage done to healthy or cancerous cells by these drugs, often making treatment with mitomycin C in these patients fatal.
But resveratrol appears to offer hope as an alternative treatment for these patients, according to the researchers. And their findings may go beyond Fanconi anemia.
Resveratrol has been found to be effective in treating head and neck cancer, according to Robert Sclafani, PhD, an investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics. He and is colleagues are also exploring the effect of resveratrol in Fanconi cell lines to see if it could prevent cancer by eliminating the cancer cells in these patients.
Sclafani hopes that additional mutations found in Fanconi head and neck cancer cells but not in regular Fanconi cells will make the cancer cells sensitive to resveratrol in a way normal Fanconi cells are not.
The results of the study will be presented at the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund Scientific Symposium, held September 27-30 in Denver.
