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Green tea catechin as a chemical chaperone in cancer prevention.

Kuzuhara T, Suganuma M, Fujiki H

Laboratory of Biochemistry, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, Yamashiro-cho, Tokushima 770-8514, Japan. kuzuhara@ph.bunri-u.ac.jp

Green tea catechins have recently gained significant acceptance as a cancer preventive, and one of the important features of catechins is their interactions with various target molecules. We recently found a functional and structural similarity between catechins and chaperones: Stochastic conformational analysis in silico revealed numerous conformations of (-)-epigallocatechin gallate, (-)-epicatechin gallate and (-)-epigallocatechin, showing a unique flexibility and mobility of the catechin molecules and suggesting the significance of a galloyl group in conformational variation. Since these conformations result in interaction with various types of molecules, we think that green tea catechin induces cancer preventive activity mediated through a chaperone-like property.

Published 11 February 2008 in Cancer Lett, 261(1): 12-20.
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