Cancer prevention with green tea and monitoring by a new biomarker, hnRNP B1

The study of green tea polyphenols as cancer preventives is approaching a n ew era, with significant results accumulating rapidly. This paper briefly r eviews four topics related to mechanisms of action of tea polyphenols: (I) identification of the genes commonly affected by EGCG, as demonstrated by C lontech's Atlas (TM) cDNA Expression Array; (II) the significance of hetero genous nuclear ribonucleoprotein B1 (hnRNP B1) as a new biomarker for early detection of lung cancer, and inhibition of its expression by EGCG; (III) the synergistic or additive effects of EGCG with the cancer preventive agen ts, sulindac and tamoxifen, on induction of apoptosis in PC-9 cells and on inhibition of intestinal tumor development in multiple intestinal neoplasia (Min) mice; (IV) the results of a 10 year prospective cohort study demonst rating the effectiveness of daily consumption of green tea in preventing ca ncer, and a prototype study for developing green tea beverage as cancer pre ventive. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BN. All rights reserved.