Vitamin D and cancer: an update of in vitro and in vivo data.

1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3, Calcitriol) is a pleiotropic hormone with anti-proliferative, pro-apoptotic and pro-differentiation effects on numerous cell types, which suggest anti-cancer activity in addition to its classical regulatory action on calcium and phosphate metabolism. 1,25(OH)2D3 exerts its actions mainly via its high affinity receptor VDR through a complex network of genomic (transcriptional and post-transcriptional) and also non-genomic mechanisms, which are partially coincident in the different cells and tissues studied. Epidemiological and experimental in vitro and in vivo data support a cancer preventive role of 1,25(OH)2D3. The anti-cancer activity of 1,25(OH)2D3 and multiple analogs with reduced calcemic properties, which are thus less toxic, is under investigation in a long list of cultured cell types and in several in vivo models of wild-type and genetically-modified animals. Some vitamin D compounds have reached clinical trials, but results are still scarce.