Carcinogen adducts as an indicator for the public health risks of consuming carcinogen-exposed fish and shellfish
- British Columbia Cancer Research Center, Vancouver (Canada)
A large variety of environmental carcinogens are metabolically activated to electrophilic metabolites that can bind to nucleic acids and protein, forming covalent adducts. The formation of DNA-carcinogen adducts is thought to be a necessary step in the action of most carcinogens. Recently, a variety of new fluorescence, immunochemical, and radioactive-postlabeling procedures have been developed that allow the sensitive measurement of DNA-carcinogen adducts in organisms exposed to environmental carcinogens. In some cases, similar procedures have been developed for protein-carcinogen adducts. In an organism with active metabolic systems for a given carcinogen, adducts are generally much longer lived than the carcinogens that formed them. Thus, the detection of DNA- or protein-carcinogen adducts in aquatic foodstuffs can act as an indicator of prior carcinogen exposure. The presence of DNA adducts would, in addition, suggest a mutagenic/carcinogenic risk to the aquatic organism itself. Vertebrate fish are characterized by high levels of carcinogen metabolism, low body burdens of carcinogen, the formation of carcinogen-macromolecule adducts, and the occurrence of pollution-related tumors. Shellfish, on the other hand, have low levels of carcinogen metabolism, high body burdens of carcinogen, and have little or no evidence of carcinogen-macromolecule adducts or tumors. The consumption of carcinogen adducts in aquatic foodstuffs is unlikely to represent a human health hazard. There are no metabolic pathways by which protein-carcinogen or DNA-carcinogen adducts could reform carcinogens. Incorporation via salvage pathways of preformed nucleoside-carcinogen adducts from foodstuffs into newly synthesized human DNA is theoretically possible.
- OSTI ID:
- 5511367
- Journal Information:
- Environmental Health Perspectives; (United States), Vol. 90; ISSN 0091-6765
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
DNA ADDUCTS
BIOSYNTHESIS
FISHES
CONTAMINATION
FOOD CHAINS
POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS
CARCINOGENESIS
WATER POLLUTION
BIOLOGICAL INDICATORS
METABOLIC ACTIVATION
PUBLIC HEALTH
RISK ASSESSMENT
ADDUCTS
ANIMALS
AQUATIC ORGANISMS
AROMATICS
HYDROCARBONS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PATHOGENESIS
POLLUTION
SYNTHESIS
VERTEBRATES
540320* - Environment
Aquatic- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (1990-)
560300 - Chemicals Metabolism & Toxicology