Abstract
Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), a class 1 carcinogen and prominent food contaminant, is highly linked to the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and plays a causative role in a large portion of global HCC cases. We have demonstrated that a mixture of common organic acids (citric and phosphoric acid) along with arginine can eliminate >99% of AFB1 in solution as well as on corn kernels and convert it to the AFB2a-Arg adduct, acting as a potential detoxification process for contaminated foods. Evaluation of toxicokinetic changes after AFB2a-Arg formation show that the product is highly stable in biological fluids, is not metabolized by P450 enzymes, is highly plasma protein bound, has low lipid solubility, and has poor intestinal permeability/high intestinal efflux compared to AFB1. Ames’ test results show that at mutagenic concentrations of AFB1, AFB2a-Arg does not have any measurable mutagenic effect which was confirmed by DNA adduct identification by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Evaluation in HepG2 and HepaRG cells showed that AFB2a-Arg did not cause any significant decreases in cell viability nor did it increase micronuclei formation when administered at toxic concentrations of AFB1. These results show that conversion of AFB1 to AFB2a-Arg is a potential strategy to detoxify contaminated foods.
Highlights
Aflatoxins are a group of mycotoxins produced by the fungi Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasictus which frequently contaminate many varieties of the world’s crops, maize, groundnuts, and wheats [1,2,3,4,5]
Because Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) can be transformed into aflatoxin B2a (AFB2a) which can adduct to amines under acidic conditions, we investigated the transformation of AFB1 into AFB2aArg in a single treatment step across multiple acidic pH values
Using High performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS), we were able to develop a method to detect the presence of AFB1 as well as AFB2a-Arg as the detoxification product after boiling each treatment solution for 20 min (Figure 2A and 2B)
Summary
Aflatoxins are a group of mycotoxins produced by the fungi Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasictus which frequently contaminate many varieties of the world’s crops, maize, groundnuts, and wheats [1,2,3,4,5]. Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia are the regions which possess the highest risk of exposure to aflatoxins and have experienced aflatoxin outbreaks severe enough to cause hundreds of deaths due to acute toxicities [16,17,18]. While these areas experience the greatest burden of aflatoxins, it is predicted that as the average global temperature increases due to climate change, many countries may experience greater risks of aflatoxin exposure in the future [19]
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