The lethal effects and determinants of microcystin-LR on heart: a mini review

Abstract

Microcystin-leucine arginine (MC-LR) is the most common microcystin (MC) variant produced during cyanobacteria blooms. Chronic and acute exposure to MC-LR is known to cause many health effects on mammalian organs including the heart. Studies suggested that aside the liver, cardiogenic complications may also occur from MC-LR intoxication. Thus, this paper reviews the various effects of MC-LR on cardiac toxicity. In addition, the various techniques used to assess cardiac toxicity induced by MC-LR were elucidated. Based on the MC analysis, this paper concludes that there is the need for a standardized animal model approach to investigate both chronic and acute MC-LR exposure to build convincing evidence to support cardiotoxicity.

Keywords:

• Cardiotoxicity
• microcystin –LR
• cardiomyopathy
• heart disease
• toxicity

Ethical statement

The contents of the present study have not been previously published and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation [81773393, 81502787]; Central South University Innovation Driven Project [20170027010004]; Key Research and Development Projects in Hunan Province [2019SK2041, 2018WK2013].