IMR Press / FBL / Volume 29 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.31083/j.fbl2902051
Open Access Original Research
Genotoxicity Assessment of Quinoin, a Ribosome Inactivating Protein from Quinoa Seeds, in the Teleost Danio rerio
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1 Department of Environmental, Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies (DiSTABiF), University of Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’, 81100 Caserta, Italy
2 Institute of Crystallography, National Research Council of Italy, 81100 Caserta, Italy
3 Department of Biology, University Federico II, 80126 Napoli, Italy
*Correspondence: antimo.dimaro@unicampania.it (Antimo Di Maro); lucia.rocco@unicampania.it (Lucia Rocco)
These authors contributed equally.
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2024, 29(2), 51; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.fbl2902051
Submitted: 27 July 2023 | Revised: 7 September 2023 | Accepted: 29 December 2023 | Published: 4 February 2024
Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Background: Ribosome inactivating proteins (RIPs) are N-glycosylases found in various plants that are able to specifically and irreversibly inhibit protein translation, thereby leading to cell death. Their cytotoxic properties have attracted attention in the medical field in the context of developing new anticancer therapies. Quinoin is a novel toxic enzyme obtained from quinoa seeds and classified as a type 1 RIP (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.). Recently, quinoin was found to be cytotoxic to normal fibroblasts and keratinocytes in vitro, as well as to several tumor cell lines. Methods: The aim of this study was to evaluate the in vitro and in vivo genotoxicity of quinoin in a zebrafish model. We evaluated its ability to induce DNA fragmentation, genomic instability, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation by means of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) reaction, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique, and dichlorofluorescine (DCF) assay, respectively. Results: Quinoin was found to cause genomic damage in zebrafish, as shown by DNA fragmentation, polymorphic variations leading to genomic instability, and oxidative stress. Interestingly, longer quinoin treatment caused less damage than shorter treatments. Conclusions: This study demonstrated ROS-mediated genotoxicity of quinoin toward the zebrafish genome. The reduced damage observed after longer quinoin treatment could indicate the activation of detoxification mechanisms, activation of repair mechanisms, or the loss of protein activity due to enzymatic digestion. In order to clarify the genotoxic actions of quinoin, further investigations of the response pathways to DNA damage are needed. Overall, the ability of quinoin to cause breaks and instability in DNA, together with its clear cytotoxicity, make it an interesting candidate for the development of new drugs for cancer treatment.

Keywords
Chenopodium quinoa Willd.
DNA damage
genotoxic enzyme
N-β-glycosylase
oxidative stress
zebrafish
Funding
PRR.AP026.014 - PNRR - IR0000009/Potentiating the Italian Capacity for Structural Biology Services in Instruct-ERIC
MUR D.D. 0003264 del 28/12/2021/ITACA.SB.
University of Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’
University Federico II
Figures
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