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Heavy Metals and Human Health: Mechanistic Insight into Toxicity and Counter Defense System of Antioxidants

Heavy metals, which have widespread environmental distribution and originate from natural and anthropogenic sources, are common environmental pollutants. In recent decades, their contamination has increased dramatically because of continuous discharge in sewage and untreated industrial effluents. Be...

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Autores principales: Jan, Arif Tasleem, Azam, Mudsser, Siddiqui, Kehkashan, Ali, Arif, Choi, Inho, Haq, Qazi Mohd. Rizwanul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4691126/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26690422
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms161226183
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author Jan, Arif Tasleem
Azam, Mudsser
Siddiqui, Kehkashan
Ali, Arif
Choi, Inho
Haq, Qazi Mohd. Rizwanul
author_facet Jan, Arif Tasleem
Azam, Mudsser
Siddiqui, Kehkashan
Ali, Arif
Choi, Inho
Haq, Qazi Mohd. Rizwanul
author_sort Jan, Arif Tasleem
collection PubMed
description Heavy metals, which have widespread environmental distribution and originate from natural and anthropogenic sources, are common environmental pollutants. In recent decades, their contamination has increased dramatically because of continuous discharge in sewage and untreated industrial effluents. Because they are non-degradable, they persist in the environment; accordingly, they have received a great deal of attention owing to their potential health and environmental risks. Although the toxic effects of metals depend on the forms and routes of exposure, interruptions of intracellular homeostasis include damage to lipids, proteins, enzymes and DNA via the production of free radicals. Following exposure to heavy metals, their metabolism and subsequent excretion from the body depends on the presence of antioxidants (glutathione, α-tocopherol, ascorbate, etc.) associated with the quenching of free radicals by suspending the activity of enzymes (catalase, peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase). Therefore, this review was written to provide a deep understanding of the mechanisms involved in eliciting their toxicity in order to highlight the necessity for development of strategies to decrease exposure to these metals, as well as to identify substances that contribute significantly to overcome their hazardous effects within the body of living organisms.
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spelling pubmed-46911262016-01-06 Heavy Metals and Human Health: Mechanistic Insight into Toxicity and Counter Defense System of Antioxidants Jan, Arif Tasleem Azam, Mudsser Siddiqui, Kehkashan Ali, Arif Choi, Inho Haq, Qazi Mohd. Rizwanul Int J Mol Sci Review Heavy metals, which have widespread environmental distribution and originate from natural and anthropogenic sources, are common environmental pollutants. In recent decades, their contamination has increased dramatically because of continuous discharge in sewage and untreated industrial effluents. Because they are non-degradable, they persist in the environment; accordingly, they have received a great deal of attention owing to their potential health and environmental risks. Although the toxic effects of metals depend on the forms and routes of exposure, interruptions of intracellular homeostasis include damage to lipids, proteins, enzymes and DNA via the production of free radicals. Following exposure to heavy metals, their metabolism and subsequent excretion from the body depends on the presence of antioxidants (glutathione, α-tocopherol, ascorbate, etc.) associated with the quenching of free radicals by suspending the activity of enzymes (catalase, peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase). Therefore, this review was written to provide a deep understanding of the mechanisms involved in eliciting their toxicity in order to highlight the necessity for development of strategies to decrease exposure to these metals, as well as to identify substances that contribute significantly to overcome their hazardous effects within the body of living organisms. MDPI 2015-12-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4691126/ /pubmed/26690422 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms161226183 Text en © 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Jan, Arif Tasleem
Azam, Mudsser
Siddiqui, Kehkashan
Ali, Arif
Choi, Inho
Haq, Qazi Mohd. Rizwanul
Heavy Metals and Human Health: Mechanistic Insight into Toxicity and Counter Defense System of Antioxidants
title Heavy Metals and Human Health: Mechanistic Insight into Toxicity and Counter Defense System of Antioxidants
title_full Heavy Metals and Human Health: Mechanistic Insight into Toxicity and Counter Defense System of Antioxidants
title_fullStr Heavy Metals and Human Health: Mechanistic Insight into Toxicity and Counter Defense System of Antioxidants
title_full_unstemmed Heavy Metals and Human Health: Mechanistic Insight into Toxicity and Counter Defense System of Antioxidants
title_short Heavy Metals and Human Health: Mechanistic Insight into Toxicity and Counter Defense System of Antioxidants
title_sort heavy metals and human health: mechanistic insight into toxicity and counter defense system of antioxidants
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4691126/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26690422
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms161226183
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