2021 Volume 67 Issue 2 Pages 131-139
Cancer is the leading cause of death in Japan. Cancer is treated by multidisciplinary therapy such as surgery, chemotherapy, molecular target therapy and radiotherapy. However, almost of advanced cancer relapse after treatment. The relapsed cancer acquires resistance to the therapeutic agents we already used. The prognosis of relapsed cancer is very poor. Therefore, new treatment agents are needed urgently. In recent years metabolites derived from natural foods are focused as new therapeutic agents of cancer diseases. The metabolites are expected to cause less side effect than chemotherapy and have same effect as chemotherapy to cancer. Furthermore therapeutic agents from natural foods are Ellagic acid is metabolite derived from nuts, berries, and pomegranates. Ellagic acid is known to have anticancer effects, due to affecting apoptosis, cell proliferation and cell cycle regulation. Some of metabolites from ellagic acid also have anticancer effect. Urolithins are gut derived bacterial metabolites from ellagic acid. Many articles reported that Urolithin-A has anticancer effect for many cancers. Urolithin-A was reported to regulate p53 protein, caspase 3, caspase 7, AKT, aromatase and PARP in some cancers. Actin polymerization is regulated via Rac1 pathway by Urolithin-A in endometrial cancer. Furthermore, proliferation of many cancer cell lines is suppressed by UA. Safety of UA was investigated by using Rat model. The article suggested Urolithin-A has less genotoxicity compared with cyclophosphamide. Thus, Urolithin-A might be able to have a role as new treatment agent to cancer.
