Incorporating 'omics' approaches to elucidate the role of selenium and selenoproteins in cancer prevention

Abstract

Epidemiologic and preclinical studies provide evidence that increasing dietary selenium (Se) may have cancer protective properties. However, variation in cancer incidence among and within populations with similar Se intake suggests that an individual's response may reflect interactions with genetic and/or environmental factors. The omics of nutrition (nutrigenomics, nutrigeneties, nutritional epigenomics, nutritional transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) may assist in understanding the cellular and molecular events associated with the cancer protective effects of Se, as well as in identifying responders and non-responders. Approaches, that utilize transgenic and knockout mice with altered selenoprotein expression offer models to evaluate the importance of selenoproteins or small molecular selenocompounds in mediating the cancer protective effects of Se. While the challenges will be enormous, the potential rewards in terms of both cancer morbidity and mortality will be of equally great magnitude.