Oxidative stress as a plausible mechanism for zearalenone to induce genome toxicity.

• ZEN can cause genome toxicity, including DNA damage, and epigenetic modification. • Increased ROS is an important pathway that ZEN exposure can lead to genome toxicity. • Strategies to counteract ZEN effects are proposed. Zearalenone (ZEN), a common non-steroidal estrogenic mycotoxin of the Fusarium genus , is one of the most frequent and powerful contaminant of grains and cereal products representing a serious threat for people and livestock health. In fact, ZEN causes cytotoxicity and genotoxicity in a variety of cell types at least in part through binding to estrogen receptors (ERs). The main pathways through which ZEN induces such effects remain, however, elusive. In particular, how the mycotoxin causes DNA damage, dysregulates DNA repair mechanisms, changes epigenome of targeted cells and, not least, affects chromatin conformation and non-coding RNA (ncRNA), is unclear. In the present paper, following extensive review of the literature about such ZEN effects and our own experience in studying the effects of this compound on reproductive processes, we propose that increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and consequently oxidative stress (OS) are central in ZEN genotoxicity. Besides to shed light on the action mechanisms of the mycotoxin, this notion might help to develop effective strategies to counteract its deleterious biological effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]