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Articles

Bcl-2 Is Not Reduced in the Death of MCF-7 Cells at Low Genistein Concentration¹

Food and Nutritional Sciences Programme, Department of Biochemistry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong and ^* U.S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, Phytonutrients Laboratory, Beltsville, MD 20705

²To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Soy consumption has been associated with a lower incidence of breast cancer in Southeast Asia. Among the phytochemicals in soy, genistein has been suggested to be chemopreventive. Because genistein is an estrogen-receptor (ER) agonist, the chemopreventive mechanism has been attributed to its ability to compete with estrogen for receptor binding. In this study, we used an ER-positive cell line to investigate the effects of different genistein concentrations on the apoptotic response. The threshold concentration at which a significant number of cells underwent apoptosis was titrated to be 25 µmol/L. At or above this concentration, c-jun N-terminus kinase was activated and Bax and Bcl-2 expression were both elevated. The elevated Bcl-2 protein might neutralize the proapoptotic effect of Bax. Therefore, the mechanism of genistein-induced apoptosis at this concentration might rely largely on the stress pathway rather than the pathway mediated by the Bcl-2 family of proteins.

KEY WORDS: • genistein • Bcl-2 • c-jun N-terminus kinase • MCF-7 cells • cell death

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