Genotoxicological Characterization of (±)cis-4,4'-DMAR and (±)trans-4,4'-DMAR and Their Association

Antimutagenicity and Antioxidant Activity of Castanea sativa Mill. Bark Extract

Castanea sativa Mill. (Cs), a plant traditionally employed in nutrition and to treat various respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, possesses cancer chemopreventive characteristics. In particular, Cs bark extract previously demonstrated antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic activities against a leukemic lymphoblastic cell line. Starting from this evidence, the aim of this paper was to investigate the possibility to affect also the earlier phases of the carcinogenic process by evaluating Cs bark extract's antimutagenic properties, in particular using the "In Vitro Mammalian Cell Micronucleus Test" on TK6 cells performed by flow cytometry. For this purpose, since an ideal chemopreventive agent should be virtually nontoxic, the first step was to exclude the extract's genotoxicity. Afterwards, the antimutagenic effect of the extract was evaluated against two known mutagens, the clastogen mitomycin C (MMC) and the aneugen vinblastine (VINB). Our results indicate that Cs bark extract protected cells from MMC-induced damage (micronuclei frequency fold increase reduction from 2.9 to 1.8) but not from VINB. Moreover, we demonstrated that Cs bark extract was a strong antioxidant and significantly reduced MMC-induced ROS levels by over 2 fold. Overall, our research supports the assumption that Cs bark extract can counteract MMC mutagenicity by possibly scavenging ROS production.

The Genotoxicity of Acrylfentanyl, Ocfentanyl and Furanylfentanyl Raises the Concern of Long-Term Consequences

Three fentanyl analogues Acrylfentanyl, Ocfentanyl and Furanylfentanyl are potent, rapid-acting synthetic analgesics that recently appeared on the illicit market of new psychoactive substances (NPS) under the class of new synthetic opioids (NSO). Pharmacotoxicological data on these three non-pharmaceutical fentanyl analogues are limited and studies on their genotoxicity are not yet available. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate this property. The ability to induce structural and numerical chromosomal aberrations in human lymphoblastoid TK6 cells was evaluated by employing the flow cytometric protocol of the in vitro mammalian cell micronucleus test. Our study demonstrated the non-genotoxicity of Fentanyl, i.e., the pharmaceutical progenitor of the class, while its illicit non-pharmaceutical analogues were found to be genotoxic. In particular, Acrylfentanyl led to a statistically significant increase in the MNi frequency at the highest concentration tested (75 μM), while Ocfentanyl and Furanylfentnyl each did so at both concentrations tested (150, 200 μM and 25, 50 μM, respectively). The study ended by investigating reactive oxygen species (ROS) induction as a possible mechanism linked to the proved genotoxic effect. The results showed a non-statistically significant increase in ROS levels in the cultures treated with all molecules under study. Overall, the proved genotoxicity raises concern about the possibility of serious long-term consequences.