How do haloacetamides and haloacetic acids affect human intestinal epithelial cells?

International audience; In this research, human intestinal epithelial cells (Caco-2) were exposed to haloacetamides and haloacetic acids. A 24, 48 and 72h exposure was conducted to determine the cytotoxicity of these compounds. The unregulated haloacetamides were clearly more cytotoxic than the regulated haloacetic acids. Moreover, changing the halogen from Cl to I increased the toxicity extensively. A 6h stimulation with 1 µM of each compound and subsequent RNA extraction showed high upregulation of genes involved in both oxidative stress and inflammatory pathways with haloacetamide exposure, while no significant changes were seen for haloacetic acid exposure.