Astaxanthin can be used as a new metastasis inhibitor of colorectal cancer

Rectal cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors Colorectal cancer often occurs in the middle-aged and above population, the incidence rate of men and women is about 2:1 Colorectal cancer cell metastasis is often the main cause of colorectal cancer death Astaxanthin can be used as a new type of colorectal cancer cell metastasis inhibitor, according to a recent study published in scientific reports by researchers from Jiaquan University in South Korea Astaxanthin (AXT) is a kind of carotene The US Food and Drug Administration (http:// and the European Commission approved AXT as a color additive for food dyes It has a wide range of anti-cancer and anti-aging effects in shrimp, crab, fish and plants The researchers found that astaxanthin can negatively regulate the expression of Myc Myc is a carcinogenic transcription factor, which can inhibit the expression of mir-29 and miR-200 family genes mir-29a-3p and mir-200a, which are the inhibitors of MMP2 and ZEB1 respectively The expression of MMP2 and ZEB1 leads to epithelial stromal transformation (EMT) which induces cancer cell metastasis Therefore, the decrease of Myc can restore the expression of mir-29a-3p and mir-200a, and then inhibit the metastasis of colorectal cancer related to MMP2 and ZEB1 In further animal experiments, the researchers found that astaxanthin can effectively inhibit the metastasis activity of colon cancer cells in mouse models