The role of microRNAs in the toxic mechanisms of furan and 3-MCPD and links to cancer risk – a review

Abstract

Contaminants formed during food processing are of increasing concern to public and food safety experts, as well as international risk assessment organizations. The emergence of ‘omic’ technologies (e.g. genomics and transcriptomics) have greatly increased the mechanistic knowledge of the toxicity associated with these compounds, and consequently have provided a better understanding of their potential adverse effects. Of note, microRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as being of key importance during the development of cancer as well as being associated with food-processing contaminants. MiRNAs have been demonstrated to trigger toxic processes in hepatic and renal tissues due to exposure to toxic compounds such as furan and 3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol (3-MCPD), respectively. In this review, we consider the roles of miRNAs in the toxicity process and the challenges that lay ahead in order to translate this knowledge to the benefit of industrial food processing.

Keywords:

• miRNA
• cis-2-butene-1 4-dial
• molecular toxicity
• MCPDE
• processing contaminant

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (156537/2019–2) and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Financial code (001)).