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Impacts of Environmental Pollution on the Development of Non-communicable Diseases

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A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Toxicology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 7521

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Anca Oana Docea

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Guest Editor

Department of Toxicology, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, 200349 Craiova, Romania
Interests: risk-assessment; pesticides; metabolic disorders; neurotoxicology; mixtures; animal studies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Robin Mesnage

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, King’s College London School of Medicine, Guy’s Hospital, London SE1 9RT, UK
Interests: caloric restriction; pesticides; glyphosate; gut microbiome; high-throughput “-omics” technologies; nutrition
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Consumers are exposed to a large number of chemicals from different sources during their daily lives. Many these chemicals are used as pesticides, heavy metals, food additives, and additives in hygiene and beauty products. Throughout the world, plant protection products (PPP) use more than 2 million tons of these chemicals every year. Although pesticide handlers, agricultural workers, and those living in areas of intensive agriculture are most exposed to PPP residues, those in food and water pose a danger to all consumers. Long-term exposure to certain environmental pollutants and heavy metals is associated with an increased risk of cancer, Parkinson's disease, metabolic disorders, neurodevelopmental effects, genotoxicity, and immunotoxicity. EU legislation has established adequate safe doses (such as the ADI, expressed in mg/kg bw/day) for each of these substances at which lifetime exposure would not cause any appreciable health risk. Even though these levels are considered safe, many scientific studies found that exposure to these substances could cause adverse effects. A major limitation of existing safe doses, such as ADIs, is that they are based on a classic risk assessment approach, which focuses on the 'one-exposure-one-effect' hypothesis and single-substance chemical studies. Studies investigating the interactions that may occur when different pesticides are combined show that toxicokinetic interactions can occur, creating potentiation and synergism effects that can cause an unexpected toxicological response or an attack on another organ target.

This Special Issue, entitled “Impacts of Environmental Pollution on the Development of Non-communicable Diseases”, welcomes original research and reviews in this field, with a focus on the impact of environmental pollutants on non-communicable diseases, particularly new mechanistic studies of the toxicity and mixture evaluation and their implication in disease and human risk assessment.

Dr. Anca Oana Docea
Dr. Robin Mesnage
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

herbicides
nutrition
pesticides
heavy metals
gut microbiome
risk-assessment
mixtures

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

Jump to: Review

12 pages, 2126 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Changes in the Phenotype of Intramural Inhibitory Neurons of the Porcine Descending Colon Resulting from Glyphosate Administration

by Michał Bulc, Jarosław Całka and Katarzyna Palus

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(23), 16998; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms242316998 - 30 Nov 2023

Viewed by 755

Abstract

Environmental contamination and the resulting food contamination represent a serious problem and pose a major threat to animal and human health. The gastrointestinal tract is directly exposed to a variety of substances. One is glyphosate, whose presence in the soil is commonly observed. This study demonstrates the effects of low and high glyphosate doses on the populations of intramural neurons of the porcine descending colon. An analysis was performed on neurons ex-pressing the vasoactive intestinal peptide, pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating peptide, a neuronal isoform of nitrogen oxide synthase, and galanin. Even a low dose of glyphosate increased the number of neurons immunoreactive against the studied substances. However, the changes depended on both the plexus analysed and the substance tested. Meanwhile, a high glyphosate dose resulted in quantitative changes (an increase in the number) within neurons immunoreactive against all the studied neuropeptides/enzymes in the myenteric plexus and both submucosal plexuses. The response of the enteric nervous system in the form of an increase in the number of neurons immunoreactive against neuroprotective substances may suggest that glyphosate has a toxic effect on enteric neurons which attempt to increase their survivability through the released neuroprotective substances. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Environmental Pollution on the Development of Non-communicable Diseases)

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13 pages, 1194 KiB

Open AccessArticle

DNA Damage Estimation after Chronic and Combined Exposure to Endocrine Disruptors: An In Vivo Real-Life Risk Simulation Approach

by Vasiliki Karzi, Eren Ozcagli, Manolis N. Tzatzarakis, Elena Vakonaki, Irene Fragkiadoulaki, Aikaterini Kalliantasi, Christina Chalkiadaki, Athanasios Alegakis, Polychronis Stivaktakis, Aikaterini Karzi, Antonios Makrigiannakis, Anca Oana Docea, Daniela Calina and Aristidis Tsatsakis

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(12), 9989; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24129989 - 10 Jun 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1178

Abstract

Exposure to chemical substances has always been a matter of concern for the scientific community. During the last few years, researchers have been focusing on studying the effects resulting from combined exposure to different substances. In this study, we aimed to determine the DNA damage caused after chronic and combined exposure to substances characterized as endocrine disruptors using comet and micronuclei assays, specifically glyphosate (pure and commercial form), bisphenol A, parabens (methyl-, propyl- and butylparaben), triclosan and bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate. The highest mean tail intensity was observed in the group exposed to a high-dose (10 × ADI) mixture of substances (Group 3), with a mean value of 11.97 (11.26–13.90), while statistically significant differences were noticed between the groups exposed to low-dose (1 × ADI) (Group 2) and high-dose (10 × ADI) (Group 3) mixtures of substances (p = 0.003), and between Group 3 and both groups exposed to high doses (10 × ADI) of the pure and commercial forms of glyphosate (Groups 4 (p = 0.014) and 5 (p = 0.007)). The micronuclei assay results were moderately correlated with the exposure period. Group 5 was the most impacted exposure group at all sampling times, with mean MN counts ranging between 28.75 ± 1.71 and 60.75 ± 1.71, followed by Group 3 (18.25 ± 1.50–45.75 ± 1.71), showing that commercial forms of glyphosate additives as well as mixtures of endocrine disruptors can enhance MN formation. All exposure groups showed statistically significant differences in micronuclei counts with an increasing time trend. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Environmental Pollution on the Development of Non-communicable Diseases)

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13 pages, 1694 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Comparative Assessment of the Inhibitory Potential of the Herbicide Glyphosate and Its Structural Analogs on RGD-Specific Integrins Using Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays

by Borbála Gémes, Eszter Takács, Inna Székács, Robert Horvath and András Székács

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(20), 12425; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms232012425 - 17 Oct 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1415

Abstract

Transmembrane glycoprotein integrins play crucial roles in biochemical processes, and by their inhibition or activation, different signal pathways can be disrupted, leading to abnormal physiological functions. We have previously demonstrated the inhibitory effect of glyphosate herbicide’s active ingredient on cell adhesion and its αvβ3 integrin antagonist effect. Therefore, it appeared particularly exciting to investigate inhibition of glyphosate and its metabolites on a wider range of Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) binding integrins, namely αvβ3, α5β1 and αllbβ3. Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess how extended the inhibitory effect observed for glyphosate on the integrin αvβ3 is in terms of other RGD integrins and other structurally or metabolically related derivatives of glyphosate. Five different experimental setups using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were applied: (i) αvβ3 binding to a synthetic polymer containing RGD; (ii) αvβ3 binding to its extracellular matrix (ECM) protein, vitronectin; (iii) α5β1 binding to the above polymer containing RGD; (iv) αllbβ3 binding to its ECM protein, fibrinogen and (v) αvβ3 binding to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein receptor binding domain. Total inhibition of αvβ3 binding to RGD was detected for glyphosate and its main metabolite, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), as well as for acetylglycine on α5β1 binding to RGD. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Environmental Pollution on the Development of Non-communicable Diseases)

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Review

Jump to: Research

42 pages, 3414 KiB

Open AccessReview

Environmental Pollution and Risk of Childhood Cancer: A Scoping Review of Evidence from the Last Decade

by María del Pilar Navarrete-Meneses, Consuelo Salas-Labadía, Fernando Gómez-Chávez and Patricia Pérez-Vera

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(6), 3284; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25063284 - 14 Mar 2024

Viewed by 1715

Abstract

The long-term effects of environmental pollution have been of concern as several pollutants are carcinogenic, potentially inducing a variety of cancers, including childhood cancer, which is a leading cause of death around the world and, thus, is a public health issue. The present scoping review aimed to update and summarize the available literature to detect specific environmental pollutants and their association with certain types of childhood cancer. Studies published from 2013 to 2023 regarding environmental pollution and childhood cancer were retrieved from the PubMed database. A total of 174 studies were eligible for this review and were analyzed. Our search strategy brought up most of the articles that evaluated air pollution (29%) and pesticides (28%). Indoor exposure to chemicals (11%), alcohol and tobacco use during pregnancy (16%), electromagnetic fields (12%), and radon (4%) were the subjects of less research. We found a particularly high percentage of positive associations between prenatal and postnatal exposure to indoor (84%) and outdoor (79%) air pollution, as well as to pesticides (82%), and childhood cancer. Positive associations were found between leukemia and pesticides and air pollution (33% and 27%); CNS tumors and neuroblastoma and pesticides (53% and 43%); and Wilms tumor and other rare cancers were found in association with air pollution (50%). Indoor air pollution was mostly reported in studies assessing several types of cancer (26%). Further studies are needed to investigate the mechanisms underlying the potential associations between indoor/outdoor air pollution and pesticide exposure with childhood cancer risk as more preventable measures could be taken. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Environmental Pollution on the Development of Non-communicable Diseases)

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14 pages, 592 KiB

Open AccessReview

Organophosphate-Pesticide-Mediated Immune Response Modulation in Invertebrates and Vertebrates

by Karime Guadalupe Bernal-González, Carlos Eduardo Covantes-Rosales, Milton Rafael Camacho-Pérez, Ulises Mercado-Salgado, Victor Wagner Barajas-Carrillo, Daniel Alberto Girón-Pérez, Ashley Carolina Montoya-Hidalgo, Karina Janice Guadalupe Díaz-Resendiz, Rocío Guadalupe Barcelos-García, Gladys Alejandra Toledo-Ibarra and Manuel Iván Girón-Pérez

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(6), 5360; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24065360 - 10 Mar 2023

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1774

Abstract

Organophosphate pesticides (OPs) have greatly facilitated food production worldwide, and their use is not limited to agriculture and the control of pests and disease vectors. However, these substances can directly affect the immune response of non-target organisms. In this sense, exposure to OPs can have negative effects on innate and adaptive immunity, promoting deregulation in humoral and cellular processes such as phagocytosis, cytokine expression, antibody production, cell proliferation, and differentiation, which are crucial mechanisms for host defense against external agents. This review focuses on the scientific evidence of exposure to OPs and their toxic effects on the immune system of non-target organisms (invertebrates and vertebrates) from a descriptive perspective of the immuno-toxic mechanisms associated with susceptibility to the development of bacterial, viral, and fungal infectious diseases. During the exhaustive review, we found that there is an important gap in the study of non-target organisms, examples of which are echinoderms and chondrichthyans. It is therefore important to increase the number of studies on other species directly or indirectly affected by Ops, to assess the degree of impact at the individual level and how this affects higher levels, such as populations and ecosystems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Environmental Pollution on the Development of Non-communicable Diseases)

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