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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...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2015
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4691126 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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