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Research on Natural Toxins from Plants and Food

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Products Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 1541

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Northwest Biological Research Center, La Paz 23096, BCS, Mexico
Interests: biotechnology; green growth; microbial pathogenesis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Northwest Biological Research Center, La Paz 23096, BCS, Mexico
Interests: biotechnology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Natural toxins can act as defense mechanisms of plants through their infestation with toxin-producing mold or through ingestion by animals of toxin-producing microorganisms. They can be present in a variety of different crops and foodstuffs. Natural toxins can cause a variety of adverse health effects and pose serious threats to both humans and livestock. Acute poisoning can cause allergic reactions to severe stomachache, diarrhea, and even death, while long-term health consequences include effects on immune, reproductive, or nervous systems, as well as cancer.

Natural toxins not only pose risks to both human and animal health but also impact food security and nutrition by reducing people’s access to healthy food. Thus, future research on the implementation of emerging technologies is required, with additional scientific work on food processing methods that are effective against these naturally occurring plant food toxicants.

This Special Issue aims to cover various aspects (including protocols to evaluate the safety of food crops for human and animal consumption; preventive control management components of hazard analyses and risk-based preventive controls for processed human food and animal feed; sensitive and selective analytical methods to be used for the determination, isolation, purification, and characterization of natural toxins from natural resources, as well as in human- and animal-processed food/feed and bioactive ingredients; and in vitro, in vivo, and in silico bioassay models to investigate the effects on immune, reproductive, or nervous systems, and to estimate how such biological molecules can modulate metabolic processes and have potential adverse health effects on humans and animals.

Dr. Felipe Ascencio
Dr. Norma Y. Hernández-Saavedra
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • aquatic biotoxins
  • cyanogenic glycosides
  • furocoumarins
  • lectins
  • mycotoxins
  • pyrrolizidine alkaloids
  • solanines and chaconine

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 5328 KiB  
Article
Carbohydrate-Binding Properties and Antimicrobial and Anticancer Potential of a New Lectin from the Phloem Sap of Cucurbita pepo
by Md. Aminul Islam, Md. Mikail Hossain, Alima Khanam, A. K. M. Asaduzzaman, Syed Rashel Kabir, Yasuhiro Ozeki, Yuki Fujii and Imtiaj Hasan
Molecules 2024, 29(11), 2531; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules29112531 - 27 May 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1246
Abstract
A Cucurbita phloem exudate lectin (CPL) from summer squash (Cucurbita pepo) fruits was isolated and its sugar-binding properties and biological activities were studied. The lectin was purified by affinity chromatography and the hemagglutination assay method was used to determine its pH, [...] Read more.
A Cucurbita phloem exudate lectin (CPL) from summer squash (Cucurbita pepo) fruits was isolated and its sugar-binding properties and biological activities were studied. The lectin was purified by affinity chromatography and the hemagglutination assay method was used to determine its pH, heat stability, metal-dependency and sugar specificity. Antimicrobial and anticancer activities were also studied by disc diffusion assays and in vivo and in vitro methods. The molecular weight of CPL was 30 ± 1 KDa and it was stable at different pH (5.0 to 9.0) and temperatures (30 to 60 °C). CPL recovered its hemagglutination activity in the presence of Ca2+. 4-nitrophenyl-α-D-glucopyranoside, lactose, rhamnose and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine strongly inhibited the activity. With an LC50 value of 265 µg/mL, CPL was moderately toxic and exhibited bacteriostatic, bactericidal and antibiofilm activities against different pathogenic bacteria. It also exhibited marked antifungal activity against Aspergillus niger and agglutinated A. flavus spores. In vivo antiproliferative activity against Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC) cells in Swiss albino mice was observed when CPL exerted 36.44% and 66.66% growth inhibition at doses of 3.0 mg/kg/day and 6.0 mg/kg/day, respectively. A 12-day treatment by CPL could reverse their RBC and WBC counts as well as restore the hemoglobin percentage to normal levels. The MTT assay of CPL performed against human breast (MCF-7) and lung (A-549) cancer cell lines showed 29.53% and 18.30% of inhibitory activity at concentrations of 128 and 256 µg/mL, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Natural Toxins from Plants and Food)
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