A perspective review on impact and molecular mechanism of environmental carcinogens on human health

ABSTRACT

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death all around the world. It is a group of diseases characterized by abnormal and uncontrollable division of cells leading to severe health conditions and fatality if remains undiagnosed till later stages. Cancer can be caused due to mutation or sudden alterations by effect of certain external agents. Agents that can cause sudden alterations in the genetic content of an individual are known as mutagens. Mutations can lead to permanent changes in the genetic constituency of an individual and possibly lead to cancer. Mutagenic agents that possess the capacity to induce cancer in humans are called carcinogens. Carcinogens may be naturally present in the environment or generated by anthropogenic activities. However, with the progress in molecular techniques, genetic and/or epigenetic mechanisms of carcinogenesis of a wide range of carcinogens have been elucidated. Present review aims to discuss different types of environmental carcinogens and their respective mechanisms responsible for inducing cancer in humans.

KEYWORDS:

• Mutagen
• carcinogen
• human health
• environmental factors

Acknowledgments

SM and SP acknowledge the use of facilities supported by Amity institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Jharkhand, Ranchi, India.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Author contribution

SM and SP conceptualized the idea. SM and SP collected the data. SM, SP, SK, AK and VU wrote the manuscript. SM and SP revised the manuscript. All the authors contributed significantly to the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Sumira Malik

Dr. Sumira Malik is currently working as an Assistant Professor in Amity institute of biotechnology, Amity University Jharkhand, Ranchi, Jharkhand. She has total experience of 09 years, with 06 years of teaching and 08 years of research experience. She has completed her Ph.D. at School of Biological sciences and Biotechnology, Chonnam national university, Gwangju, South Korea. She has worked intensively as research fellow and pursued postdoctoral studies from lab of stem cell biology, Hormone research centre, Chonnam National university, South Korea. She had 31 research and review articles in SCI, Peer-Reviewed International, UGC approved and NAAS rated journals, 5 book chapters, 2 books, 2 published patents, six awards for research excellence and two awards for young scientist award to her credit. She is a Life Member in various Professional Societies and reviewer in SCI and international journals. She has been awarded with competitive research fund for working upon Uttarakhand technical university state government based project as co-Principal investigator.

Shilpa Prasad

Dr. Shilpa Prasad is presently working as an Assistant Professor at Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Jharkhand. She has been working on the factors that are responsible to determine egg quality. Her research area includes cell physiology. She has completed her Post-Doctoral research work from University of the Free States, Bloemfontein, South Africa. She has completed her Ph. D from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. She has published various research/review articles in International and National Journals of repute.

Shristi Kishore

Shristi Kishore is a scholar at Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Jharkhand. She is pursuing B. Tech Biotechnology. She is working under guidance of Dr. Sumira Malik and Dr. Shilpa Prasad, Assistant Professor, Amity institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Jharkhand. She has published many papers and presented posters/e posters in various International and National conferences.

Abhishek Kumar

Dr. Abhishek Kumar received his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of Bielefeld in Germany and subsequently worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology at the University of Padova in Italy where he established pipelines for Roche 454-based transcriptome analyses for insects and fishes. He is a recipient of the prestigious Ramalingaswami Fellowship awarded by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India. At IOB, he is employing multi-omics approaches for studying cancer and neurological disorders and developing computational pipelines for detailed analysis of genomes.

Vineet Upadhyay

Vineet Upadhyay is a Ph.D. Scholar at Institute of Bioinformatics (IOB), Whitefield, Bangalore, Karnataka, INDIA.  He has published many papers.