Antagonistic Effect Of Curcumin On Cytotoxicity And Genotoxicity Of Heavy Metals

Widespread heavy metal pollution has caused serious health risks worldwide.In history,public hazards caused by heavy metal pollution have brought huge losses to society and families,and produced a variety of adverse effects on human health that will last for a long time.However,in many parts of the world,exposure to heavy metals is still continuing and even increasing in some places.Researchers and clinical workers have taken various measures to alleviate the harm of heavy metals to the environment and human body,but the results are not satisfactory.So far,no specific,efficient,safe and affordable antidotes for heavy metals have been found.Curcumin,commonly known as dihydroxymethane,is a member of the linear diaryl heptane family of natural products,in which two oxygen-substituted aryl groups are linked together by seven-carbon chains and have:(1)Many beneficial properties such as anti-aging,weight loss,anti-atherosclerosis,antibacterial,anti-Alzheimer’s disease and anti-oxidation;(2)Safe source,simple composition and no side effects on human body;(3)Can be produced by microbial fermentation,low cost and other advantages are widely used in scientific research.However,the antagonism of curcumin against heavy metals is mostly based on a single heavy metal at present.Due to different experimental models,exposure methods and evaluation methods,the experimental conclusions are not clear.In addition,it remains unclear to a large extent whether the differences in the specificity and antagonistic ability of curcumin against different types of heavy metals are due to the unique binding or interaction mode of curcumin with certain heavy metals.Further elucidation of antagonistic effects in this paper mainly obtained the following results:The results showed that curcumin showed stronger detoxification activity against Cd and As toxicity than that against Pb and Ni toxicity.In addition,the detoxification ability of curcumin on genotoxicity caused by heavy metals was significantly stronger than that on cytotoxicity by comparing different experimental endpoints.In terms of mechanism exploration,inhibition of oxidative stress caused by heavy metals and reduction of bioaccumulation of metal ions all played a role in the process of curcumin detoxification of all tested heavy metals.These results indicate that curcumin has significant detoxification specificity for different types of heavy metals and different experimental endpoints.These results provide a new clue for curcumin to be used in heavy metal detoxification.