Protective effect of Aronia melanocarpa juice against acrylamide-induced cellular toxicity

Abstract

Acrylamide (AA) a widely used industrial chemical is also formed during food processing by the Maillard reaction, which makes its exposure to humans almost unavoidable. In this study, we used Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model organism to investigate AA toxicity (10 or 20 mM concentration) in eukaryotes. In S. pombe, AA delays cell growth causes oxidative stress by enhancement of ROS production and triggers excitement of the antioxidant defence system resulting in the division arrest. Aronia fruit contains a variety of health-promoting substances with considerable antioxidant potential. Therefore, Aronia juice supplementation was tested to evaluate its protective effect against AA-derived perturbations of the organism. Cell treatment with several Aronia juice concentrations ranging from 0 to 2% revealed the best protective effect of 1 or 2% Aronia juice solutions. Both chosen Aronia juice concentrations alleviated AA toxicity through the improvement of the antioxidant cell capacity and metabolic activity by their strong ROS scavenging property. Efficiency of Aronia juice cell protection is dose dependent as the 2% solution led to significantly higher cellular defence compared with 1%. Due to the high similarity of biological processes of S. pombe with higher eukaryotes, the protective effect of Aronia juice against AA toxicity might also apply to higher organisms.

Keywords:

• Aronia melanocarpa
• acrylamide
• oxidative stress
• Schizosaccharomyces pombe
• antioxidant capacity

Author contributions

Conceptualisation: MK, MP, and AN. Methodology: MK and AN. Validation: MP, MK, and AT. Formal analysis: MK and AN. Investigation: MP. Resources: AN, JK, and JM. Data curation: MK. Writing—original draft preparation: MP. Writing—review and editing: MK, AN, JK, JM, and AT. Visualisation: MP and MK. Project administration: AN. Funding acquisition: AN, JK, and JM. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the SUA grant agency projects [grant number 12-GASPU-2021], [grant number GA FAPZ 2/2021]; VEGA [grant number 1/0159/21]; Slovak Research and Development Agency project APVV-20-0161; and the project “Drive4SIFood” of the European Union Operational Program Integrated Infrastructure Managing Authority Ministry of Transport and Construction of the Slovak Republic [grant number ITMS2014 + 313011V336].