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* Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology,
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and
** Department of Stomatology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425
3To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: wallet{at}musc.edu.
| ABSTRACT |
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KEY WORDS: flavonoid glycosides salivary hydrolysis ß-glucosidase oral cancer
Epidemiological studies have clearly demonstrated a protective role of fruits and vegetables in oral cancers, presumably mediated by their content of polyphenols, particularly flavonoids (13). Numerous mechanisms for these effects have been suggested, mainly based on in vitro and cellular studies (46). The dietary sources of flavonoids, except for the tea flavonoids (7), are flavonoid glycosides, which in most cases first must undergo hydrolysis to their aglycones to be able to produce effects. Still, serious questions remain regarding how these dietary components gain access to proposed cellular sites of action in the human body. For the tea flavonoids, which are gallic acid esters rather than glycosides, the access to oral epithelial cells may be less complex, as very recently noted (7).
In the past, it was strongly believed that flavonoid glycosides could not be absorbed per se but only after hydrolysis by the bacterial flora in the lower part of the intestine (8,9). In 1995 researchers proposed that flavonoid glycosides can be absorbed intact, presumably via the sodium-dependent glucose transporter SGLT1 (10). Although this was later confirmed (11), it was also shown that many glycosides are not absorbed due to efficient efflux transport by multidrug resistance-associated protein-2 (12). Other studies suggested that hydrolysis of flavonoid glycosides can occur in the small intestine (13), maybe by the broad-specific enterocyte ß-glucosidase (14) and/or the lactase phloridzin hydrolase (15). Once this hydrolysis occurs, the aglycones formed are efficiently absorbed, although the bioavailability may be extremely low due to extensive presystemic metabolism (16). Thus, the potential protective effects of dietary flavonoids against cancers of the oral cavity are not understood.
Saliva has been suggested to be able to hydrolyze flavonoid glycosides (1719), but it has never been considered an important factor. In the present study we attempted to establish the importance of salivary hydrolysis, using as substrates 4 different glycosides of quercetin, i.e., quercitrin (the 3-rhamnoside), rutin (the 3-rhamnoglucoside), isoquercitrin (the 3-glucoside), and spiraeoside (the 4'-glucoside), which previously have been shown to be hydrolyzed by ß-glucosidases of human (14,15) and/or bacterial origin (9). We also tested genistin (genistein 7-glucoside), naringin (naringenin 7-rhamnoglucoside), and phloridzin (phloretin 2'-glucoside) as substrates, all commonly present in the human diet.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Collection of human saliva. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board for Human Research. The limited population study was conducted using 17 volunteers recruited from 1 high school science class (ages 1517 y). Other saliva samples were from adult subjects (2364 y). Unstimulated saliva (2 mL) was collected in the morning with the subject abstaining from toothbrushing since the previous evening. In some adult subjects saliva was collected before and after brushing (no toothpaste) or before and after rinsing with an antibacterial mouthrinse (chlorhexidine or Listerine) for 30 s. In the latter experiments, saliva was collected at 6 min and 1, 2, 6, and 24 h after the mouthrinse.
Flavonoid hydrolysis by saliva. The saliva (2 mL) was diluted 1:1 with distilled water and shaken vigorously to reduce viscosity. In some experiments, diluted saliva was centrifuged at 10,000 x g and filtered with 1- and 0.2-µm filters to remove oral cells and bacteria, respectively. Other saliva samples (1 mL) were incubated on a shaking water bath at 37°C for 24 h with an equal volume of DMEM (containing 10% fetal bovine serum) with or without 200,000 U/L penicillin and 0.2 g/L streptomycin prior to incubation with flavonoid glycoside.
Flavonoid glycosides dissolved in DMSO (final concentration < 0.1%) were added to two 1-mL aliquots of the saliva mixture to a final flavonoid concentration of 25 or 50 µmol/L. After vigorous shaking and vortexing, argon was added to the samples before incubation for specified times at 37°C. The pH of the saliva samples was 6.7 ± 0.2 (mean ± SEM) before and 6.4 ± 0.1 after incubation. An equal volume of methanol was added to the samples following incubation. The samples were centrifuged at 16,000 x g for 2 min and the supernatant was analyzed by HPLC with flavonoid-specific UV detection.
Flavonoid hydrolysis by cultured oral bacteria. A cotton swab was held in the mouth of 1 volunteer whose saliva had been shown previously to have a high level of flavonoid hydrolysis. The swab was streaked on blood agar and chocolate agar plates and incubated overnight. Eight different-looking common bacterial colonies were subcultured twice to ensure a homogeneous population. One plate for each colony was used for heavy inoculation of fresh plates. Twenty-four hours later, the bacterial colonies were removed with a cotton swab to tubes of sterile broth, vortexed, and rocked at room temperature for 1 h. Aliquots (0.5 mL) of the bacterial suspensions as well as broth (negative control) were incubated with 50 µmol/L genistin for 1 h at 37°C on a shaking water bath. The samples were analyzed as above. The experiment was done twice with separate inoculates.
Flavonoid hydrolysis by SCC-9 oral squamous carcinoma cell cytosol. Oral squamous carcinoma SCC-9 cells obtained from the American Type Culture Collection were cultured in F-12/DMEM containing glutamine and HEPES, fetal calf serum (10%), 100,000 U/L penicillin, 0.1 g/L streptomycin, and hydrocortisone (0.2 g/L). SCC-9 cytosol was prepared by harvesting the cells at confluency. The cell pellet was resuspended in buffer containing protease inhibitors and was then sonified and centrifuged at 100,000 x g for 15 min at 7°C. The cytosol (supernatant) was stored at 80°C. Aliquots of cytosol were mixed with 0.1 mol/L acetate buffer (pH 6) to mimic the pH of the oral environment. Quercetin 4'-glucoside was added to a final concentration of 25 µmol/L, and the samples were incubated at 37°C for 1 h. After the addition of an equal volume of methanol and centrifugation, the samples were subjected to HPLC analysis as described below.
HPLC. All flavonoid glycosides and their respective aglycones were detected by reverse phase HPLC of 200-µL samples on a Millennium HPLC system with a Symmetry C18 column (3.9 x 150 mm) and a Model 996 photodiode array detector, using slight modifications of previous studies (20,21). The flow rate was 0.9 mL/min. A mobile phase consisting of 35% methanol and 5% acetic acid with UV detection at 370 nm was used for the quercetin glycosides and at 260 nm for genistin and naringin. Phloridzin hydrolysis was analyzed using a mobile phase of 45% methanol and 0.3% trifluoroacetic acid with detection at 283 nm. Quantitation was done by peak area measurements in comparison with standard curves for each of the flavonoid glycosides and aglycones. The detection limits were adequate for all experiments. The recoveries were estimated to exceed 90% for all compounds tested, as previously noted (20,21).
Cell proliferation assay. SCC-9 cells were seeded in 96 wells at a density of 5000 cells/well and cultured as described above. On d 24 after plating, fresh medium including 0.1200 µmol/L flavonoid or DMSO (0.25%, v:v) was added. On d 5 the medium was aspirated and the cells were incubated with MTT in buffer (0.5 g/L) for 3 h before the addition of 0.1 mol/L HCl and 10% Triton X-100 in 2-propanol (Sigma protocol) to lyse the cells and dissolve the formazan crystals. The absorbance was read with a plate reader at 570 nm with 690-nm background subtraction. This assay measures the conversion of MTT to blue formazan by mitochondrial dehydrogenases in living cells.
Statistics. Data are means ± SEM. The statistical significance of differences between 2 treatments was evaluated using a 2-tailed unpaired Student t test with a significant level of P < 0.05. In experiments with multiple treatments, ANOVA with Dunnetts posttest (InStat) or 2-way ANOVA with Bonferronis posttest (Prism) was used.
| RESULTS |
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The hydrolysis of all 7 of the flavonoid glycosides studied was examined using saliva from 1 subject in replicate analyses (Table 1). For estimation of the rates of hydrolysis, the percentage conversion to the aglycones, taking into account the molar extinction coefficients, was determined after 2-h incubations at 37°C. Four of the glycosides were hydrolyzed efficiently, spiraeoside, phloridzin, genistin, and isoquercitrin, with spiraeoside being by far the best substrate. On the other hand, rutin was hydrolyzed very little, and quercitrin and naringin were not hydrolyzed at all. The same pattern was seen with saliva from 3 other subjects, although the interindividual variability in the hydrolysis rate was large (see below).
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To determine the potential biological importance of the collective findings, we examined the antiproliferative effects of quercetin and genistein, the 2 flavonoids demonstrating efficient salivary formation from their precursor glucosides, on the oral squamous carcinoma SCC-9 cells using the MTT assay and a wide range of flavonoid concentrations (0.1200 µmol/L) (Fig. 5). Both flavonoids produced potent inhibition with a minimum effective concentration (MEC) of 5 and 10 µmol/L for quercetin and genistein, respectively. Thus, the aglycones formed in the oral cavity may have anticancer and antibacterial (3) effects or more generally scavenge hydrogen peroxide and other reactive oxygen species (19).
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| DISCUSSION |
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Still, whether this oral hydrolysis will be of importance for local effects on the oral epithelium, considering the relatively short residence time of most foods in the oral cavity, is difficult to assess. Our study of 17 high school students demonstrated a remarkable interindividual variability in hydrolysis rate. These observations suggest that oral hydrolysis may be quantitatively important in some individuals but not in others. Such variability may have a genetic origin, but could also involve environmental factors.
Hydrolysis of flavonoid glucosides by ß-glucosidases in the oral cavity is also likely to be influenced by the food matrix in which they are contained. Thus, if contained in a liquid form, they will obviously have greater access to the enzymes than if contained in a solid form requiring extensive chewing. Even so, it should be clear that the hydrolytic activity will start in the oral cavity and continue through the passage of the food throughout the aerodigestive tract.
The mechanism of hydrolysis was presumably through ß-glucosidases, but the source of these enzymes was difficult to pinpoint. Bacterial flora in the oral cavity play a role. This can be deduced from the effectiveness of the antibacterial agents chlorhexidine and Listerine in inhibiting the salivary hydrolysis and is also strongly supported by the experiments using cell culture techniques, either for the whole saliva or for subcultured oral bacterial colonies. However, cytosols from cultured oral epithelial cells also displayed a high rate of hydrolysis and the saliva from all subjects, in particular after brushing the cheeks, gums, and tongue, contained high numbers of epithelial cells. It is interesting to note that the cytosolic hydrolysis of quercetin 4'-glucoside to quercetin proceeded with an apparent Km of 34 µmol/L and a Vmax of 64 nmol/(h · mg protein), very similar to the hydrolysis by cytosol from human liver and small intestine (14), implying the involvement of the same ß-glucosidase enzyme. Clearly, more studies will be needed to better determine the contribution of bacterial and human epithelial ß-glucosidases.
Finally, it was of great interest to note that both quercetin and genistein were able to inhibit proliferation of the oral squamous carcinoma SCC-9 cells. This occurred with an MEC of 510 µmol/L for these flavonoids, which should be achievable in the oral cavity after consumption of a diet containing these flavonoids. The mechanisms of these effects are likely different. Quercetin inhibits PI3-kinase (26), whereas genistein inhibits tyrosine kinases (26). A mixture of flavonoids with different mechanistic properties may be an advantage in cancer prevention.
In conclusion, flavonoid glucosides were hydrolyzed to their aglycones in the oral cavity. The ß-glucosidase enzymes responsible were derived both from bacteria and shedded oral epithelial cells. Two of the flavonoid aglycones studied, quercetin and genistein, showed potent inhibition of oral cancer cell proliferation. The ability of some individuals but not others to hydrolyze these protective dietary flavonoids in the oral cavity should be an important consideration in future studies.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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2 Presented in part at the Experimental Biology 2004 meeting in Washington, DC, April 1721, 2004 [Walle, U. K., Browning, A. M., Steed, L. L., Reed, S. G. & Walle, T. (2004) Hydrolysis of flavonoid glycosides in the oral cavitycontribution by both bacteria and shedded epithelial cells. FASEB J. 18: A890 (abs.)]. ![]()
4 Abbreviations used: DMSO, dimethyl sulfoxide; MEC, minimum effective concentration; MTT, 3-[4,5-dimethylthiozol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide. ![]()
Manuscript received 21 August 2004. Initial review completed 13 September 2004. Revision accepted 30 September 2004.
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