Fumonisin B₁ induces toxicity in human leukocytes at low concentrations: Are computational studies effective to...

Fumonisin B₁ is a mycotoxin produced by Fusarium verticillioides and Fusarium proliferatum found in various crops, particularly maize. Besides carcinogenicity, other manifestations have been registered in different animals and in humans. In the case of humans, epidemiological studies have reported high prevalence of esophageal cancer in populations exposed to fumonisins. This study aimed to evaluate the minimum concentration of FB₁ capable of inducing cytotoxicity (cell viability test), genotoxicity (comet assay) and mutagenicity (micronucleus) in cultured human leukocytes and to evaluate the effectiveness of in silico tests to predict FB₁ toxicity. All concentrations analyzed (200; 100; 50; 5; 0.5; 0.05; 0.005 μg/mL and 300; 30; 3; 1; 0.1; 0.01 fg/mL) except the lowest demonstrated dose-dependent toxicity in all parameters analyzed (p < 0.05 to p < 0.0001). As for predictions, only the Lazar software showed carcinogenicity of FB₁ for rats. Thus, it is evident that FB₁ is able to induce dose-dependent damage at low concentrations, and that computational tests, although desirable for prediction, are not effective as biological tests to determine toxicity, at least of FB ₁ and within the experimental conditions tested.