Polimorfismi del gene CYP2A6 e dipendenza dal fumo in un gruppo di soggetti della Sicilia Occidentale

E’ stato dimostrato che la diversa capacità di metabolizzare alcune sostanze è la conseguenza di differenze geneticamente determinate nelle attività di alcuni enzimi. In particolare, il citocromo P450 CYP2A6 ha diversi livelli di espressione interindividuali ed interetnici a causa di polimorfismi genetici; metabolizza circa il 70-80% della nicotina e ciò determina in alcune popolazioni una dipendenza interindividuale più o meno elevata dal fumo di sigaretta. Più in dettaglio, individui con alleli CYP2A6 con elevata attività metabolizzante (CYP2A6*1) avranno una maggiore dipendenza dalla nicotina, poiché questa, essendo metabolizzata velocemente, rimane nell’organismo per breve tempo: di con…

Evaluation of DNA damage in murine fibroblasts treated with cigarette smoke condensate

CSC is a complex chemical mixture containing about 4800 compounds, many of them have cytotoxic and mutagenic activities on mammalian cells. Most of these compounds are able to interact with DNA at different levels. Cells may respond to DNA damage by following different pathways, such as the DNA repair processes and the cell cycle and DNA damage checkpoint activation. To the aim to evaluate the biological effects of CSC on cells, alkaline comet assay and flow cytofluorimetry were used to examine DNA damage/repair and cell cycle progression. All experiments were performed by using CSC from standard cigarettes in the range of doses 30-180g/ml and Swiss 3T3 murine fibroblasts. Results obtained…

Biochemical approaches to characterize targets responsible for acrylamide-induced inhibition of topoisomerase II

Vinyl monomer acrylamide (AA), generally used in numerous industrial applications, has been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (group 2A), but the molecular mechanism underlying its genotoxicity has not fully known. Previously, we observed that Acrylamide (AA) was able to antagonize in vivo the citotoxicity of well know poison etoposide suggesting that topoisomerase II (Topo II) activity was affected by AA. In the current studies we investigated the inhibitory activity of acrylamide toward topoisomerase II by performing tests in vitro.

CYTOTOXIC POTENTIAL OF AQUEOUS EXTRACTS FROM RHIZOMES AND LEAVES OF POSIDONIA OCEANICA (L.) DELILE AGAINST HEPG2 CANCER CELLS