Exposure profiling of reactive compounds in complex mixtures

A comparison of the exposure system of glycidol-related chemicals on the formation of glycidol-hemoglobin adducts

Glycidol fatty acid esters that are present in foods are degraded in vivo to the animal carcinogen glycidol, which binds to the N-terminal valine of hemoglobin (Hb) to form N-(2,3-dihydroxypropyl)valine (diHOPrVal) adducts. The existence of other chemicals that are converted to glycidol is unknown. To determine the effect of different exposure conditions on the formation of diHOPrVal adducts, several glycidol-related chemicals (3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol; 3-MCPD, epichlorohydrin, glyceraldehyde, acrylic acid, and 1,2-propanediol) were evaluated using in vitro and in vivo (single/repeated dose) methods. In vitro, the reaction of 3-MCPD or epichlorohydrin with human Hb produced 17% and 0.7% of diHOPrVal, as compared to equimolar glycidol, respectively. Following a single administration of glycidol-related compounds to ICR mice, diHOPrVal formation was observed only in the epichlorohydrin-treated group after day 5 of exposure. After 14 days of repeated dosing, the amounts of diHOPrVal produced by epichlorohydrin and 3-MCPD in vivo were <1% of diHOPrVal produced by an equal molar concentration of glycidol. Furthermore, glyceraldehyde group produced 0.2% of diHOPrVal at the same molar concentration of glycidol equivalents, in which diHOPrVal formation could not be confirmed by the in vitro assay. The results indicate the usefulness of diHOPrVal as an exposure marker for glycidol; however, the contribution of its formation in vivo by exposure to various chemicals will be necessary to validate and interpret the results.

The oral microbiome in autoimmune diseases: friend or foe?

The human body is colonized by abundant and diverse microorganisms, collectively known as the microbiome. The oral cavity has more than 700 species of bacteria and consists of unique microbiome niches on mucosal surfaces, on tooth hard tissue, and in saliva. The homeostatic balance between the oral microbiota and the immune system plays an indispensable role in maintaining the well-being and health status of the human host. Growing evidence has demonstrated that oral microbiota dysbiosis is actively involved in regulating the initiation and progression of an array of autoimmune diseases.Oral microbiota dysbiosis is driven by multiple factors, such as host genetic factors, dietary habits, stress, smoking, administration of antibiotics, tissue injury and infection. The dysregulation in the oral microbiome plays a crucial role in triggering and promoting autoimmune diseases via several mechanisms, including microbial translocation, molecular mimicry, autoantigen overproduction, and amplification of autoimmune responses by cytokines. Good oral hygiene behaviors, low carbohydrate diets, healthy lifestyles, usage of prebiotics, probiotics or synbiotics, oral microbiota transplantation and nanomedicine-based therapeutics are promising avenues for maintaining a balanced oral microbiome and treating oral microbiota-mediated autoimmune diseases. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between oral microbiota dysbiosis and autoimmune diseases is critical for providing novel insights into the development of oral microbiota-based therapeutic approaches for combating these refractory diseases.

Diazepam, metformin, omeprazole and simvastatin: a full discussion of individual and mixture acute toxicity

High consumption of drugs, combined with their presence in the environment, raises concerns about its consequences. Even though researches are often engaged in analyzing substances separately, that is not the environmental reality. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the acute toxicity of the pharmaceuticals simvastatin, metformin, omeprazole and diazepam, and all possible mixtures between them, to the organism Aliivibrio fischeri, verifying possible synergistic or antagonistic effects and assessing byproducts formation. In terms of individual toxicity, omeprazole is the most toxic of the active ingredients, followed by simvastatin, diazepam and, finally, metformin. When the toxicity of mixtures was tested, synergism, antagonism and hormesis were perceived, most probably generated due to byproducts formation. Moreover, it was observed that even when compounds are at concentrations below the non-observed effect concentration (NOEC), there may be toxicity to the mixture. Hence, this work points to the urgent need for more studies involving mixtures, since chemicals are subject to interactions and modifications, can mix, and potentiate or nullify the toxic effect of each other.

A simplified method for detection of N-terminal valine adducts in patients receiving treosulfan

RATIONALE

Treosulfan is a substance that is being studied as part of the conditioning regimen given prior to allogeneic stem cell transplantation in patients with hematological malignancies. It is known to decompose into 1,2:3,4-diepoxybutane (DEB) under physiologic conditions. In this study, we investigate whether N-terminal valine adducts can be utilized to monitor differences in DEB formation of patients receiving treosulfan as part of the conditioning regimen for transplantation.

METHODS

Blood samples were collected from a group of 14 transplant recipients and analyzed for N,N-(2,3-dihydroxy-1,4-butadiyl)valine (pyr-Val) and 2,3,4-trihydroxybutylvaline (THB-Val) adducts as biomarkers for drug uptake and metabolism before treosulfan treatment and 6 days after treatment.

RESULTS

A new direct injection liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) method was developed and validated prior to clinical analysis. The assay precision was determined by 3 replicate analyses on 3 individual days using control globin spiked with known amounts of pyr-Val and THB-Val. The intra- and inter-day precision coefficients of variance (CVs) and accuracy were < 10% and 15%, respectively. In clinical specimens, the means ± SD of pyr-Val and THB-Val background were 0.29 ± 0.10 pmol/g HB and 5.17 ± 1.7 pmol/g HB, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

These values are similar to those found previously. Treosulfan treatment leads to a significant increase in pyr-Val and THB-Val adducts in each patient (Student's t-test p <0.0001). The mean ± SD amounts of adduct formed were 245.3 ± 89.6 and 210 ± 78.5 pmol/g globin for pyr-Val and THB-Val, respectively. Importantly, these results show that this direct injection method can quantitate both background and treosulfan-induced pyr-Val and THB-Val N-terminal valine globin adducts in humans.

Biomonitoring Human Albumin Adducts: The Past, the Present, and the Future

Serum albumin (Alb) is the most abundant protein in blood plasma. Alb reacts with many carcinogens and/or their electrophilic metabolites. Studies conducted over 20 years ago showed that Alb forms adducts with the human carcinogens aflatoxin B1 and benzene, which were successfully used as biomarkers in molecular epidemiology studies designed to address the role of these chemicals in cancer risk. Alb forms adducts with many therapeutic drugs or their reactive metabolites such as β-lactam antibiotics, acetylsalicylic acid, acetaminophen, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, chemotherapeutic agents, and antiretroviral therapy drugs. The identification and characterization of the adduct structures formed with Alb have served to understand the generation of reactive metabolites and to predict idiosyncratic drug reactions and toxicities. The reaction of candidate drugs with Alb is now exploited as part of the battery of screening tools to assess the potential toxicities of drugs. The use of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography, or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) enabled the identification and quantification of multiple types of Alb xenobiotic adducts in animals and humans during the past three decades. In this perspective, we highlight the history of Alb as a target protein for adduction to environmental and dietary genotoxicants, pesticides, and herbicides, common classes of medicinal drugs, and endogenous electrophiles, and the emerging analytical mass spectrometry technologies to identify Alb-toxicant adducts in humans.

Evaluation of time-dependent toxicity and combined effects for a series of mono-halogenated acetonitrile-containing binary mixtures

Mixture and time-dependent toxicity (TDT) was assessed for a series of mono-halogenated acetonitrile-containing combinations. Inhibition of bioluminescence in Aliivibrio fischeri was measured after 15, 30 and 45-min of exposure. Concentration-response (x/y) curves were determined for each chemical alone at each timepoint, and used to develop predicted x/y curves for the dose-addition and independence models of combined effect. The x/y data for each binary mixture was then evaluated against the predicted mixture curves. Two metrics of mixture toxicity were calculated per combined effect model: (1) an EC₅₀-based dose-addition (AQ) or independence (IQ) quotient and (2) the mixture/dose-addition (MX/DA) and mixture/independence (MX/I) metrics. For each single chemical and mixture tested, TDT was also calculated. After 45-min of exposure, 25 of 67 mixtures produced curves that were consistent with dose-addition using the MX/DA metric, with the other 42 being less toxic than predicted by MX/DA. Some mixtures had toxicity that was consistent with both dose-addition and independence. In general, those that were less toxic than predicted for dose-addition were also less toxic than predicted for independence. Of the 25 combinations that were consistent with dose-addition, 22 (88%) mixtures contained chemicals for which the individual TDT values were both >80%. In contrast, of the 42 non-dose-additive combinations, only 2 (4.8%) of the mixtures had both chemicals with individual TDT values >80%. The results support previous findings that TDT determinations can be useful for predicting chemical mixture toxicity.

Time-dependence in mixture toxicity prediction

The value of time-dependent toxicity (TDT) data in predicting mixture toxicity was examined. Single chemical (A and B) and mixture (A+B) toxicity tests using Microtox(®) were conducted with inhibition of bioluminescence (Vibrio fischeri) being quantified after 15, 30 and 45-min of exposure. Single chemical and mixture tests for 25 sham (A1:A2) and 125 true (A:B) combinations had a minimum of seven duplicated concentrations with a duplicated control treatment for each test. Concentration/response (x/y) data were fitted to sigmoid curves using the five-parameter logistic minus one parameter (5PL-1P) function, from which slope, EC25, EC50, EC75, asymmetry, maximum effect, and r(2) values were obtained for each chemical and mixture at each exposure duration. Toxicity data were used to calculate percentage-based TDT values for each individual chemical and mixture of each combination. Predicted TDT values for each mixture were calculated by averaging the TDT values of the individual components and regressed against the observed TDT values obtained in testing, resulting in strong correlations for both sham (r(2)=0.989, n=25) and true mixtures (r(2)=0.944, n=125). Additionally, regression analyses confirmed that observed mixture TDT values calculated for the 50% effect level were somewhat better correlated with predicted mixture TDT values than at the 25 and 75% effect levels. Single chemical and mixture TDT values were classified into five levels in order to discern trends. The results suggested that the ability to predict mixture TDT by averaging the TDT of the single agents was modestly reduced when one agent of the combination had a positive TDT value and the other had a minimal or negative TDT value.