We’re constantly bombarded by advice on which foods to eat or not eat, but skeptics among us often find compelling evidence for a convincing mechanism of how the foods promote health hard to come by – food has many components, and there are many different cells and metabolic pathways in those cells with which those components interact.
Consider broccoli. It is well established that cruciferous vegetables have wide-ranging health benefits, apparently reducing cancer risks and lowering inflammation. One set of phytochemicals responsible for the potent anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties are called isothiocyanates or ‘ITCs’. It is now four decades since the discovery of ITCs, yet a molecular understanding of what ITCs do in a cell has proven elusive.
In a paper published this month in Cancer Research, Brandeis research scientist Ann Lawson, working in Liz Hedstrom’s laboratory, together with graduate students Marcus Long (Biochem) and Rory Coffey (Mol Cell Biol) and scientists from UbiQ and from Boston College, has shown that ITCs block the action of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs), including the tumorigenesis-associated enzymes USP9x and UCH37, at physiologically relevant concentrations and time scales.
DUB inhibition provides a simple, unifying explanation that can account for many of the diverse health effects of ITCs. Understanding of how ITCs work at the molecular level may, one day, lead to new drug therapies for illnesses such as cancer, chronic inflammation, and neurodegenerative diseases.