Effects of trichothecene mycotoxins on eukaryotic cells: A review

Figures & data

Figure 1. Inhibitory effect of (A) 20 ppm DON as compared with (B) water on wheat cv. Avalon seedling growth (48 h post-treatment).

Table I. Examples of the cellular effects of trichothecenes on animals and plants.

Effects	Tissue or cell type		References
	Animals	Plants
Inhibition of protein synthesis	Reticulocyte cell-free system, Vero cells, rat lymphocytes	Wheat seedling leaves, maize leaf and kernel	Carter et al. (1976), Thompson and Wannemacher (1986), Miller and Arnison (1986), Casale and Hart (1988)
Inhibition of RNA and DNA synthesis	Human (HeLa) cells, various mice and rat tissues, human erythroleukaemia cell line	–	Thompson and Wannemacher (1986, 1990), Minervini et al. (2004)
Alteration of membrane structure	L-6 myoblast, liver, spleen, kidney, thymus and bone marrow or rats	Wheat spikes and kernels	Bunner and Morris (1988), Suneja et al. (1989), Kang and Buchenauer (1999)
Mitochondria function	Rat hepatocytes, a human erythroleukaemia cell line	Inhibition of enzyme activity in maize	Pace et al. (1988), Cosette and Miller (1995), Minervini et al. (2004)
Apoptosis or programmed cell death	Jurkat human T-lymphoid cells, human leukemic cells, mice leukocytes	–	Shifrin and Anderson (1999), Yang et al. (2000) Islam and Pestka (2003)
Activation of MAPK	Jurkat human T-lymphoid cells, human leukameic cells.	–	Shifrin and Anderson (1999), Yang et al. (2000)
Activation of the cytokine	Murine CD4^+ T cells, human lumphocytes	–	Dong et al. (1994), Ouyang et al. (1995), Meky et al. (2001)

Figure 2. Trichothecene-mediated signal transduction and downstream processes in mammalian cells. Protein synthesis inhibition: trichothecenes interfere with the active site of peptidyl transferase on ribosomes. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation: certain trichothecenes induce ERK1/2, JNK and p38 MAPKs (Laskin et al. 2002). A double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase R (PKR) mediates DON-induced phosphorylation of ERK1/2, p38 and JNK MAPKs (Zhou et al. 2003b). DON activation of the proinflammatory response: it induces cytokine transcription and, as a consequence of MAPK activation, induces cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and increases synthesis of prostaglandin endoperoxides. DON-induced apoptosis (Shifrin and Anderson 1999, Yang et al. 2000, Poapolathep et al. 2002): increases linearly with inhibition of protein synthesis and the peptidyl transferase site is postulated to be a regulator of both MAPK activation and apoptosis in Jurkat T cells (Shifrin and Anderson 1999).

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Thompson , WL and Wannemacher , RW Jr. 1986 . Structure–function relationship of 12,13-epoxytrichothecene mycotoxins in cell culture: comparison of whole animal lethality . Toxicon , 24 : 985 – 994 .

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