Differential genotoxicity of diphenyl diselenide (PhSe)2 and diphenyl ditelluride (PhTe)2
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Toxicology
- Keywords
- Organoselenium, Genotoxicity and Mutagenicity., Organotellurium
- Copyright
- © 2014 Rocha et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Cite this article
- 2014. Differential genotoxicity of diphenyl diselenide (PhSe)2 and diphenyl ditelluride (PhTe)2. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e245v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.245v1
Abstract
Organoselenium compounds have been pointed out as therapeutic agents. In contrast, the potential therapeutic aspects of tellurides have not yet been demonstrated. The present study evaluated the comparative toxicological effects of diphenyl diselenide (PhSe)2 and diphenyl ditelluride (PhTe)2 in mice after in vivo administration. Genotoxicity (as determined by comet assay) and mutagenicicity were used as end-points of toxicity. Subcutaneous administration of high doses of (PhSe)2 or (PhTe)2 (500 μmol/Kg) caused distinct genotoxicity in mice. (PhSe)2 significantly decreased the DNA damage index after 48 and 96 hours of its injection (p<0.05). In contrast, (PhTe) caused a significant increase in DNA damage (p<0.05) after 48 and 96 hours of intoxication. (PhSe)2 did not cause mutagenicity but (PhTe)2 increased the micronuclei frequency, indicating its mutagenic potential. The present study demonstrated that acute in vivo exposure to ditelluride caused genotoxicity in mice, which may be associated with pro-oxidant effects of diphenyl ditelluride. These results indicated that exposure to ditelluride can be genotoxic to mice and the use of this compound and possibly other related tellurides must be carefully controlled.