|
 |
| LETTER TO THE EDITOR |
|
|
|
| Year : 2023 | Volume
: 55
| Issue : 1 | Page : 64-65 |
| |
Toxicity of zinc alone or its formulation: An issue that needs attention
Sumanpreet Kaur, Dibyajyoti Banerjee
Department of Experimental Medicine and Biotechnology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India
| Date of Submission | 14-Sep-2022 |
| Date of Decision | 08-Feb-2023 |
| Date of Acceptance | 09-Feb-2023 |
| Date of Web Publication | 20-Mar-2023 |
Correspondence Address:
Dibyajyoti Banerjee
Department of Experimental Medicine and Biotechnology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh - 160 012
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/ijp.ijp_660_22
How to cite this article:
Kaur S, Banerjee D. Toxicity of zinc alone or its formulation: An issue that needs attention. Indian J Pharmacol 2023;55:64-5 |
Dear Editor,
Recently, it is proved that zinc plays a critical role in inducing mitochondrial–lysosomal axis in causing cellular toxicity. The research considered only zinc sulfate formulation for causing such toxicity in PK-15 cells. In PK-15 cells, zinc sulfate supplementation in media from 50 μM onward exhibited toxicity.[1] Nobody should doubt that zinc is a toxic metal in high doses, but it also has several physiological functions.[2] Consequently, toxic dose determination of zinc preparations is a matter of considerable current interest. On testing several formulations of zinc, it has been observed that zinc sulfate and zinc citrate are the most toxic formulations of zinc. However, zinc uptake from zinc sulfate into the cells was comparatively higher than the relatively low toxic formulations of zinc, such as zinc histidinate.[3] Based on this, it appears that within the chosen experimental conditions, zinc sulfate acted as the culprit, not the zinc alone.[1] It is essential to reproduce such results, particularly with nontoxic zinc formulations like zinc histidinate.[3] Further, at 50 μM concentration, the zinc sulfate is toxic to PK-15 cells.[1] However, from a different laboratory, it was reported earlier that PK-15 cells exhibited superior cell viability at 10 μg/100 μl (1.2288 mM) when treated with zinc oxide nanoparticles synthesized by the green chemistry approach.[4] The biological effects of zinc in human studies as well as in cell culture system are done with various zinc formulations and not with zinc sulfate alone.[5] Therefore, we believe that the formulation of the zinc salt is important in a cell culture-based toxicity study and the basic research considering zinc toxicity should study it from different formulations [Figure 1]. | Figure 1: Treatment of PK-15 cells with ZnSO4 showed toxicity, whereas upon treating with higher doses of ZnO nanoparticles, no such toxicity was observed. This indicates that Zn formulation is important for studying Zn toxicity. ZnSO4: Zinc sulfate
Click here to view |
| » References | |  |
| 1. | Yang Q, Fang Y, Zhang C, Liu X, Wu Y, Zhang Y, et al. Exposure to zinc induces lysosomal-mitochondrial axis-mediated apoptosis in PK-15 cells. Ecotoxicol Environ Saf 2022;241:113716.  |
| 2. | Li J, Cao D, Huang Y, Chen B, Chen Z, Wang R, et al. Zinc intakes and health outcomes: An umbrella review. Front Nutr 2022;9:798078. |
| 3. | Pavlica S, Gaunitz F, Gebhardt R. Comparative in vitro toxicity of seven zinc-salts towards neuronal PC12 cells. Toxicol In vitro 2009;23:653-9. |
| 4. | Saranya S, Vijayaranai K, Pavithra S, Raihana N, Kumanan K. In vitro cytotoxicity of zinc oxide, iron oxide and copper nanopowders prepared by green synthesis. Toxicol Rep 2017;4:427-30. |
| 5. | Read SA, Obeid S, Ahlenstiel C, Ahlenstiel G. The role of zinc in antiviral immunity. Adv Nutr 2019;10:696-710. |
[Figure 1]
|
