Oxidative Stress Mechanisms Do Not Discriminate between Genotoxic and Nongenotoxic Liver Carcinogens

The relationship between spontaneous cystic degeneration and pseudocapillarization in sinusoids in the liver of aged Sprague-Dawley rats

Cystic degeneration (CD) in the liver is a cyst-like lesion composed of one or more pseudocysts lacking lining cells, occurring spontaneously in rats older than 12 months, with a male predilection. In this study, 32 CDs were identified in 23 out of 104 non-treated, control male Sprague-Dawley rats from two combined chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity studies with agrochemicals. They were examined histologically, histochemically, and immunohistochemically to assess the pathogenesis and pathological significance of CD, focusing on pseudocapillarization in aged rat liver. Pseudocapillarization refers to age-related capillarization of hepatic sinusoids and is distinct from sinusoidal capillarization observed in hepatic cirrhosis. Both CD and pseudocapillarization, characterized by factor VIII-related antigen expression, were primarily noted in the periportal regions of the rat liver. CD areas exhibited enhanced vimentin expression in a diffuse linear pattern in their septa with occasional focal linear α-smooth muscle actin expression and the fluid containing hyaluronic acid accumulated in their lumen that are thought to be formed by hepatocellular apoptosis. These findings suggest a series of reactive changes associated with hepatocellular apoptosis due to pseudocapillarization in the sinusoids. In conclusion, spontaneous CD in rat liver is not a degenerative lesion or cystic enlargement of stellate cells, but a structural abnormality in pre-existing liver tissue resulting from aging-related changes in sinusoidal endothelial cells and hepatocytes. Pseudocapillarization of sinusoids is considered a precursor lesion of CD in the rat liver.

Diazinon toxicity in hepatic and spleen mononuclear cells is associated to early induction of oxidative stress

Diazinon is an organophosphorus pesticide, which may have potential toxic effects on the liver and immune system; however, the underlying mechanisms remain mostly unidentified. This work is aimed at evaluating the oxidative stress and cell cycle alterations elicited by low-dose diazinon in a rat liver cell line (BRL-3A) and spleen mononuclear cells (SMC) from Wistar rats. Diazinon (10-50 μM) caused early reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation (from 4 h) as well as increased O₂^•- level (from 0.5 h), which led to subsequent lipid peroxidation at 24 h, in BRL-3A cells. In SMC, diazinon (20 μM) produced similar increases in ROS levels, at 4 and 24 h, with the highest O₂^•- level being found at 4 h. Low-dose diazinon induced G1-phase arrest and cell death in hepatic cells and SMC. Therefore, diazinon could affect the liver and the immunological system through the premature oxidative stress induction.Abbreviations: O₂^•-: superoxide anion radical; ROS: reactive oxygen species; SMC: spleen mononuclear cells; TBARS: thiobarbituric acid reactive substances.

Toxicogenomics of drug induced liver injury - from mechanistic understanding to early prediction

Despite rigorous preclinical testing, clinical attrition rates in drug development remain high with drug-induced liver injury (DILI) remaining one of the most frequent causes of project failures. To understand DILI mechanisms, major efforts are put into the development of physiologically relevant cell models and culture paradigms with the aim to enhance preclinical to clinical result translation. While the majority of toxicogenomic studies have been based on cell lines, there are emerging trends toward the predominant use of stem cell-derived organoids and primary human hepatocytes in complex 3D cell models. Such studies have been successful in disentangling diverse toxicity mechanisms, including genotoxicity, mitochondrial injury, steatogenesis and cholestasis and can aid in distinguishing hepatotoxic from nontoxic structural analogs. Furthermore, by leveraging inter-individual differences of cells from different donors, these approaches can emulate the complexity of polygenic risk scores, which facilitates personalized drug-specific DILI risk analyses. In summary, toxicogenomic studies into drug-induced hepatotoxicity have majorly contributed to our mechanistic understanding of DILI and the incorporation of organotypic human 3D liver models into the preclinical testing arsenal promises to enhance biological insights during drug discovery, increase confidence in preclinical safety and minimize the translational gap.

Carcinogenesis: Failure of resolution of inflammation?

Inflammation in the tumor microenvironment is a hallmark of cancer and is recognized as a key characteristic of carcinogens. However, the failure of resolution of inflammation in cancer is only recently being understood. Products of arachidonic acid and related fatty acid metabolism called eicosanoids, including prostaglandins, leukotrienes, lipoxins, and epoxyeicosanoids, critically regulate inflammation, as well as its resolution. The resolution of inflammation is now appreciated to be an active biochemical process regulated by endogenous specialized pro-resolving lipid autacoid mediators which combat infections and stimulate tissue repair/regeneration. Environmental and chemical human carcinogens, including aflatoxins, asbestos, nitrosamines, alcohol, and tobacco, induce tumor-promoting inflammation and can disrupt the resolution of inflammation contributing to a devastating global cancer burden. While mechanisms of carcinogenesis have focused on genotoxic activity to induce mutations, nongenotoxic mechanisms such as inflammation and oxidative stress promote genotoxicity, proliferation, and mutations. Moreover, carcinogens initiate oxidative stress to synergize with inflammation and DNA damage to fuel a vicious feedback loop of cell death, tissue damage, and carcinogenesis. In contrast, stimulation of resolution of inflammation may prevent carcinogenesis by clearance of cellular debris via macrophage phagocytosis and inhibition of an eicosanoid/cytokine storm of pro-inflammatory mediators. Controlling the host inflammatory response and its resolution in carcinogen-induced cancers will be critical to reducing carcinogen-induced morbidity and mortality. Here we review the recent evidence that stimulation of resolution of inflammation, including pro-resolution lipid mediators and soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibitors, may be a new chemopreventive approach to prevent carcinogen-induced cancer that should be evaluated in humans.

Mode of action-based risk assessment of genotoxic carcinogens

The risk assessment of chemical carcinogens is one major task in toxicology. Even though exposure has been mitigated effectively during the last decades, low levels of carcinogenic substances in food and at the workplace are still present and often not completely avoidable. The distinction between genotoxic and non-genotoxic carcinogens has traditionally been regarded as particularly relevant for risk assessment, with the assumption of the existence of no-effect concentrations (threshold levels) in case of the latter group. In contrast, genotoxic carcinogens, their metabolic precursors and DNA reactive metabolites are considered to represent risk factors at all concentrations since even one or a few DNA lesions may in principle result in mutations and, thus, increase tumour risk. Within the current document, an updated risk evaluation for genotoxic carcinogens is proposed, based on mechanistic knowledge regarding the substance (group) under investigation, and taking into account recent improvements in analytical techniques used to quantify DNA lesions and mutations as well as "omics" approaches. Furthermore, wherever possible and appropriate, special attention is given to the integration of background levels of the same or comparable DNA lesions. Within part A, fundamental considerations highlight the terms hazard and risk with respect to DNA reactivity of genotoxic agents, as compared to non-genotoxic agents. Also, current methodologies used in genetic toxicology as well as in dosimetry of exposure are described. Special focus is given on the elucidation of modes of action (MOA) and on the relation between DNA damage and cancer risk. Part B addresses specific examples of genotoxic carcinogens, including those humans are exposed to exogenously and endogenously, such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and the corresponding alcohols as well as some alkylating agents, ethylene oxide, and acrylamide, but also examples resulting from exogenous sources like aflatoxin B1, allylalkoxybenzenes, 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f] quinoxaline (MeIQx), benzo[a]pyrene and pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Additionally, special attention is given to some carcinogenic metal compounds, which are considered indirect genotoxins, by accelerating mutagenicity via interactions with the cellular response to DNA damage even at low exposure conditions. Part C finally encompasses conclusions and perspectives, suggesting a refined strategy for the assessment of the carcinogenic risk associated with an exposure to genotoxic compounds and addressing research needs.

The Herbicide Glyphosate and Its Apparently Controversial Effect on Human Health: An Updated Clinical Perspective

BACKGROUND

Glyphosate (G) is the most common weed-killer in the world. Every year tons and tons of G are applied on crop fields. G was first introduced in the mid 1970s and since then its usage has gradually increased to reach a peak since 2005. Now G usage is approximately 100 -fold what it was in 1970. Its impact on human health was considered benign at the beginning. But over the years, evidence of a pervasive negative effect of this pesticide on humans has been mounting. Nonetheless, G usage is allowed by government health control agencies (both in the United States and Europe), that rely upon the evidence produced by the G producer. However, the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) in 2015 has stated that G is probable carcinogenic (class 2A), the second highest class in terms of risk.

OBJECTIVE

In this review, we explore the effect of G on human health, focusing in particular on more recent knowledge.

RESULTS

We have attempted to untangle the controversy about the dangers of the product for human beings in view of a very recent development, when the so -called Monsanto Papers, consisting of Emails and memos from Monsanto came to light, revealing a coordinated strategy to manipulate the debate about the safety of glyphosate to the company's advantage.

CONCLUSION

The story of G is a recurrent one (see the tobacco story), that seriously jeopardizes the credibility of the scientific study in the modern era.

Transcriptomic effect marker patterns of genotoxins - a comparative study with literature data

Microarray approaches are frequently used experimental tools which have proven their value for example in the characterization of the molecular mode of action of toxicologically relevant compounds. In a regulatory context, omics techniques are still not routinely used, amongst others due to lacking standardization in experimental setup and data processing, and also due to issues with the definition of adversity. In order to exemplarily determine whether consensus transcript biomarker signatures for a certain toxicological endpoint can be derived from published microarray datasets, we here compared transcriptome data from human HepaRG hepatocarcinoma cells treated with different genotoxins, based on re-analyzed datasets extracted from the literature. Comparison of the resulting data show that even with similarly-acting compounds in the same cell line, considerable variation was observed with respect to the numbers and identities of differentially expressed genes. Greater concordance was observed when considering the whole data sets and biological functions associated with the genes affected. The present results highlight difficulties and possibilities in inter-experiment comparisons of omics data and underpin the need for future efforts towards improved standardization to facilitate the use of omics data in risk assessment. Existing omics datasets may nonetheless prove valuable in establishing biological context information essential for the development of adverse outcome pathways.

The application of omics-based human liver platforms for investigating the mechanism of drug-induced hepatotoxicity in vitro

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) complicates safety assessment for new drugs and poses major threats to both patient health and drug development in the pharmaceutical industry. A number of human liver cell-based in vitro models combined with toxicogenomics methods have been developed as an alternative to animal testing for studying human DILI mechanisms. In this review, we discuss the in vitro human liver systems and their applications in omics-based drug-induced hepatotoxicity studies. We furthermore present bioinformatic approaches that are useful for analyzing toxicogenomic data generated from these models and discuss their current and potential contributions to the understanding of mechanisms of DILI. Human pluripotent stem cells, carrying donor-specific genetic information, hold great potential for advancing the study of individual-specific toxicological responses. When co-cultured with other liver-derived non-parenchymal cells in a microfluidic device, the resulting dynamic platform enables us to study immune-mediated drug hypersensitivity and accelerates personalized drug toxicology studies. A flexible microfluidic platform would also support the assembly of a more advanced organs-on-a-chip device, further bridging gap between in vitro and in vivo conditions. The standard transcriptomic analysis of these cell systems can be complemented with causality-inferring approaches to improve the understanding of DILI mechanisms. These approaches involve statistical techniques capable of elucidating regulatory interactions in parts of these mechanisms. The use of more elaborated human liver models, in harmony with causality-inferring bioinformatic approaches will pave the way for establishing a powerful methodology to systematically assess DILI mechanisms across a wide range of conditions.