[Studies on cancer chemoprevention by tea pigments].

The present study was to investigate the chemopreventive effects of tea pigments. In vitro study showed that tea pigments induced QR activity and GST activity in Hep G2 cells. Three animal models were used to observe the preventive effects of tea pigments on liver cancer, colorectal cancer and oral cancer. Oral administration of 0.1% tea pigments increased GST activity in rat liver by 18%, and this increase was accompanied by the significant increase of GST 1-1, 1-2, and 3-3 protein expression in rat liver. Tea pigments inhibited the proliferating cell nuclear antigen labeling index (PCNA-LI), the expression of Bcl-2 protein and ras-p21 protein, and induced the expression of Bax protein in rat colorectal cancer. PCNA-LI, silver-stained nucleolar organizer regions (AgNOR) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression were also inhibited by tea pigments in hamster oral cancer. Our results suggested that tea pigments had chemopreventive effects on cancer, and the anti-cancer properties may be due to the activation of detoxifying enzymes such as QR and GST, the inhibition of cell proliferation and the induction of apoptosis.