Chemopreventive role of olive oil in colon carcinogenesis by targeting noncoding RNAs and methylation machinery.

Epigenetic therapy induced by dietary components has become a strong interest in the field of cancer prevention. Olive oil, a potent dietary chemopreventive agent, control colon cancer, however, its role in epigenetic therapy remains unclear. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effect of olive oil in a preclinical model of colon cancer by targeting genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. DMH was used to induce colon cancer in rats; while olive oil was given to separate group of rats along with DMH treatment. Tumor burden and incidence in DMH and DMH + olive oil-treated rats was observed by macroscopic examination and histoarchitectural studies. Potent anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenic and pro-apoptotic activity of olive oil was explored by gene expression and immunohistochemical studies. The effect of olive oil on epigenetic alterations was examined by detecting promoter methylation with MS-HRM and dysregulation of miRNA by TaqMan MicroRNA Assay. We observed that olive oil administration lowered tumor incidence and inhibited the development of tumors in DMH-treated rats. Olive oil markedly decreased the expression of inflammatory and angiogenic markers and restored the expression of pro-apoptotic markers in DMH-treated rats. Furthermore, the inverse relationship between gene expression and DNA methylation, deviant miRNA pattern and miRNA silencing mediated by aberrant DNA methylation was also seen in DMH-treated rats, which was potentially reversible upon olive oil treatment. Our study concludes that olive oil may play a role in the epigenetic therapy by altering NF-κB and apoptotic pathways via targeting noncoding RNAs and methylation machinery that affecting epigenome to prevent colon carcinogenesis.