May phytophenolics alleviate aflatoxins-induced health challenges? A holistic insight on current landscape and future prospects

Abstract

The future GCC-connected environmental risk factors expedited the progression of nCDs. Indeed, the emergence of AFs is becoming a global food security concern. AFs are lethal carcinogenic mycotoxins, causing damage to the liver, kidney, and gastrointestinal organs. Long-term exposure to AFs leads to liver cancer. Almost a variety of food commodities, crops, spices, herbaceous materials, nuts, and processed foods can be contaminated with AFs. In this regard, the primary sections of this review aim to cover influencing factors in the occurrence of AFs, the role of AFs in progression of nCDs, links between GCC/nCDs and exposure to AFs, frequency of AFs-based academic investigations, and world distribution of AFs. Next, the current trends in the application of PPs to alleviate AFs toxicity are discussed. Nearly, more than 20,000 published records indexed in scientific databases have been screened to find recent trends on AFs and application of PPs in AFs therapy. Accordingly, shifts in world climate, improper infrastructures for production/storage of food commodities, inconsistency of global polices on AFs permissible concentration in food/feed, and lack of the public awareness are accounting for a considerable proportion of AFs damages. AFs exhibited their toxic effects by triggering the progression of inflammation and oxidative/nitrosative stress, in turn, leading to the onset of nCDs. PPs could decrease AFs-associated oxidative stress, genotoxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic effects by improving cellular antioxidant balance, regulation of signaling pathways, alleviating inflammatory responses, and modification of gene expression profile in a dose/time-reliant fashion. The administration of PPs alone displayed lower biological properties compared to co-treatment of these metabolites with AFs. This issue might highlight the therapeutic application of PPs than their preventative content. Flavonoids such as quercetin and oxidized tea phenolics, curcumin and resveratrol were the most studied anti-AFs PPs. Our literature review clearly disclosed that considering PPs in antioxidant therapies to alleviate complications of AFs requires improvement in their bioavailability, pharmacokinetics, tissue clearance, and off-target mode of action. Due to the emergencies in the elimination of AFs in food/feedstuffs, further large-scale clinical assessment of PPs to decrease the consequences of AFs is highly required.

Hepatoprotective effects of leaf extract of Annona senegalensis against aflatoxin B1 toxicity in rats

“…Oxidative stress resulting from AFB 1 can be equally prevented by the use of botanical extracts and synthetic antioxidants, but some synthetic antioxidants are toxic (Rasouli, Nayeri & Khodarahmi 2022 ). Botanicals have been used since the existence of humanity to treat various ailments and are part of a trillion dollar growing industry.…”

Insights into the early-life chemical exposome of Nigerian infants and potential correlations with the developing gut microbiome

“…Additionally, polyphenols are bioactive compounds in humans, exhibiting properties that have shown to be either positive, like antimicrobial or anti-inflammatory properties (Pandey and Rizvi 2009), or potentially negative, such as estrogenic effects of isoflavones (Křížová 2019). Polyphenols can also reduce the toxicity of other xenobiotics, as seen with mycotoxins (Rasouli et al 2022). Therefore, assessing human exposure to polyphenols is essential.…”

Clover microgreen incorporation in diet‐controlled diabetes and counteracted aflatoxicosis of rats

“…Cell injury due to exposure to aflatoxins is mainly mediated by oxidative stress in addition to damaging DNA, protein, and lipids (Marin & Taranu, 2012 ). A review article has highlighted the therapeutic effect of phytophenolics as they can reduce oxidative stress, mutagenic, genotoxic, and carcinogenic effects of aflatoxins by regulating the signaling pathways, enhancing the cellular antioxidant balance, modifying the gene expression profile, and alleviating inflammatory responses (Rasouli et al, 2022 ).…”