Assessment of cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of enniatin-A in vitro

Enniatin A (EN-A) is a Fusarium mycotoxin which is a common contaminant in grains and especially in maize and it causes serious loss of product. The aim of this study was to investigate the cytotoxic effects using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazolyl-2)-2,5 diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay in human cervix carcinoma (HeLa) cell line, and genotoxic effects of EN-A using chromosome aberrations (CAs), sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs), micronuclei (MN) and comet assays in human lymphocytes. The cells were treated with 0.07, 0.14, 0.29, 0.57, 1.15, 2.29, 4.59 and 9.17M concentrations of EN-A. It exhibited cytotoxic effects in HeLa cell lines especially when the concentrations were increased. The half-inhibitory value (IC50) was determined as 1.15M concentration for 24h and 0.57M concentration for 48h. However, EN-A failed to affect the frequency of CAs, SCEs and MN in human lymphocytes. Only a slight increase was observed in the frequency of SCEs at 0.57M concentration over 48h. The replication (RI) and nuclear division (NDI) indices were not affected. On the contrary, EN-A decreased the mitotic index (MI) significantly at all concentrations compared to the negative control and solvent control (except at 0.29M for 24h, and except at 0.14, 0.29 and 0.57M for 48h). Treatments over 2.29M showed toxic effects in human lymphocytes. EN-A significantly increased comet tail intensity (except at 0.07 and 0.57M) in isolated human lymphocytes. The results of this study demonstrate that EN-A has an obvious cytotoxic effect especially when the EN-A concentration was increased. In addition, EN-A could exhibit a mild genotoxic effect.