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| The development of retinoic acid metabolism and common digestive tract tumors |
| Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, HeFei 230032, Anhui, China |
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Abstract Retinoic acid (RA) is the most important metabolite of vitamin A, which plays crucial roles in cell differentiation, growth as well as maintaining the functions of immune and epithelial cells. All of these roles were achieved by binding to its specific receptors, then regulating the transcription of target genes, finally activating the downstream signal pathways. The homeostasis of RA concentration is maintained by vivo microenvironment, including the availability of retinol, transport factors and enzymes of RA metabolism. In China, digestive tract tumor, such as oropharyngeal cancer, esophageal cancer, gastric cancer and colorectal cancer, is a disease with high morbidity and mortality, which threatens to human health and reduces the quality of life. Recently, it was reported that aberrant expressions of RA metabolism enzymes and related factors exist in digestive tract tumor tissues. Several risk factors of digestive tract tumor, such as betel nut, Helicobacter Pylori and high fat diet, affected the expression and function of RA metabolism enzymes and related factors, which further influenced the downstream signal pathway regulated by RA and finally affected the occurrence and progress of digestive tract tumor. This review showed the research progress about the metabolism of RA and the association between the metabolism of RA and some common digestive tract cancers. It provides theoretical basis for the molecular mechanism research and nutrition prevention of digestive tract cancer.
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2018, Vol. 5 
