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Departments of Pharmaco-Biology and
¹ Cell Biology, University of Calabria, 87030 Rende (Cs), Italy

(Requests for offprints should be addressed to S Andò; Email: sebastiano.ando{at}unical.it)

Previous epidemiological reports have suggested that red wine intake is associated with beneficial health effects due to the ability of certain phytochemical components to exert estrogen-like activity. It has been also documented that estrogens induce the proliferation of hormone-dependent breast cancer cells by binding to and transactivating estrogen receptor (ER) , which in turn interacts with responsive DNA sequences located within the promoter region of target genes. In order to provide further insight into the positive association between wine consumption and the incidence of breast carcinoma in postmenopausal women, we have evaluated the estrogenic properties of two abundant wine-derived compounds, named piceatannol (PIC) and myricetin (MYR), using as model systems the hormone-sensitive MCF7 and the endocrine-independent SKBR3 breast cancer cells. On the basis of our experimental evidence PIC and MYR may contribute to the estrogenicity of red wine since: (1) they transactivate endogenous ER; (2) they activate the agonist-dependent activation function (AF) 2 of ER and ERß in the context of the Gal4 chimeric proteins; (3) they rapidly induce the nuclear immunodetection of ER; (4) they regulate the expression of diverse estrogen target genes; (5) they compete with 17ß-estradiol for binding to ER and ERß; and – as a biological counterpart of the aforementioned abilities – (6) they exert stimulatory effects on the proliferation of MCF7 cells. Hence, the estrogenic activity of PIC and MYR might be considered at least as a potential factor in the association of red wine intake and breast tumors, particularly in postmenopausal women.