Influence of structural and functional modifications of selected genotoxic carcinogens on metabolism and mutagenicity - a review

An innovative nanoparticle-modified carbon paste sensor for ultrasensitive detection of lignocaine and its extremely carcinogenic metabolite residues in bovine food samples: Application of NEMI, ESA, AGREE, ComplexGAPI, and RGB12 algorithms

Nowadays, veterinary medicine residues have been viewed as a major threat to food safety worldwide, especially when dealing with carcinogenic residues. Herein, we present the first differential pulse voltammetric method for the quantification of lignocaine and its carcinogenic metabolite 2,6-xylidine residues in bovine food samples, aided by five greenness and whiteness assessment tools, including NEMI, ESA, ComplexGAPI, AGREE, and RGB12. The method depends on the electrochemical oxidation after modification of the carbon paste sensor with recycled Al₂O₃-NPs functionalized multi-walled carbon nanoparticles. The produced sensor (Al₂O₃-NPs/MWCNTs/CPE) was characterized using XRD, FT-IR, EDX, SEM, and TEM. As expected, the active surface area and electron transfer processes were accelerated by the modification, resulting in ultra-sensitive quantification with detection limits of 19.00 and 13.94 nM for lignocaine and 2,6-xylidine, respectively. In terms of greenness, whiteness, sustainability, analytical effectiveness, and economic and practical considerations, the proposed method outperforms the reported methods.

Mutagenicity of heteroaromatic amines: Computational study on the influence of methyl substituents

Quantum mechanical calculations were performed to elucidate the factors determining the variations in mutagenic activity within groups of isomeric heteroaromatic amines that differ in the position of methyl substituents. Formation energies for noncovalent complexes and covalent DNA adducts were evaluated by means of high level quantum chemical methods. According to the computational results in this work, covalent adduct stability is proposed to influence the relative mutagenicities of structurally related heterocyclic amines. The stability of covalent C8-dG DNA adducts was found to be mainly determined by π-stacking interactions between the fused ring system of the heteroaromatic amines and the flanking nucleobases. Relative mutagenicity of amines of very related structure is proposed to be regulated by both nitrenium ion and covalent adduct stabilities.

Role of in silico genotoxicity tools in the regulatory assessment of pharmaceutical impurities

The toxicological assessment of genotoxic impurities is important in the regulatory framework for pharmaceuticals. In this context, the application of promising computational methods (e.g. Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships (QSARs), Structure-Activity Relationships (SARs) and/or expert systems) for the evaluation of genotoxicity is needed, especially when very limited information on impurities is available. To gain an overview of how computational methods are used internationally in the regulatory assessment of pharmaceutical impurities, the current regulatory documents were reviewed. The software recommended in the guidelines (e.g. MCASE, MC4PC, Derek for Windows) or used practically by various regulatory agencies (e.g. US Food and Drug Administration, US and Danish Environmental Protection Agencies), as well as other existing programs were analysed. Both statistically based and knowledge-based (expert system) tools were analysed. The overall conclusions on the available in silico tools for genotoxicity and carcinogenicity prediction are quite optimistic, and the regulatory application of QSAR methods is constantly growing. For regulatory purposes, it is recommended that predictions of genotoxicity/carcinogenicity should be based on a battery of models, combining high-sensitivity models (low rate of false negatives) with high-specificity ones (low rate of false positives) and in vitro assays in an integrated manner.