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Genotoxicity, oxidative stress, and inflammatory response induced by crack-cocaine: relevance to carcinogenesis

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Abstract

Crack-cocaine is a cocaine by-product widely consumed by general population in developing countries. The drug is low cost and is associated with more intense effects when compared to other illicit drugs. Genotoxicity, oxidative stress, and inflammatory response are considered crucial events in carcinogenesis, since they actively participate in the multistep process. The purpose of this paper was to provide a mini review regarding the relationship between carcinogenesis and genotoxicity, oxidative stress, and inflammation induced by crack-cocaine. The present study was conducted on search of the scientific literature from the published studies available in PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, and Google Scholar for all kind of articles (all publications to November 2020) using the following key words: crack-cocaine, DNA damage, genotoxicity, cellular death, cytotoxicity, mutation, oxidative stress, inflammation, and mutagenicity. The results showed that published papers available were almost all in vivo test system being conducted in humans or rodents. Crack-cocaine was able to induce genotoxicity and oxidative stress in mammalian cells. However, the role of inflammatory response after exposure to crack-cocaine was not conclusive so far. In summary, this study is consistent with the notion that crack-cocaine is a chemical carcinogen as a result of genotoxicity and oxidative stress induced in mammalian and non-mammalian cells.

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Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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Funding

DVS and BAR are recipients from CAPES (Coordenação de Apoio de Pessoal de Nivel Superior, master level, Grant number #001). MBV, CDSP, JNS, and DAR are recipients from CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico, grant number #001).

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Author notes

  1. Ingra Tais Malacarne and Daniel Vitor De Souza contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosciences, Federal University of São Paulo, UNIFESP, Rua Silva Jardim, 136, Room 332, Vila Mathias, Santos, SP, 11050-020, Brazil

    Ingra Tais Malacarne, Daniel Vitor De Souza, Barbara Dos Anjos Rosario, Milena De Barros Viana, Debora Estadella & Daniel Araki Ribeiro

  2. Department of Marine Sciences, Federal University of São Paulo, UNIFESP, Santos, SP, Brazil

    Camilo Dias Seabra Pereira

  3. Department of Oral Diagnosis and Therapeutics, Faculty of Dentistry, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, BA, Brazil

    Jean Nunes dos Santos

Authors
  1. Ingra Tais Malacarne
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  2. Daniel Vitor De Souza
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  3. Barbara Dos Anjos Rosario
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  4. Milena De Barros Viana
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Contributions

ITM, DVS, DAR, and BAR made the literature search. MBV, CDSP, DE, and DAR performed data interpretation. All authors wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Daniel Araki Ribeiro.

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Malacarne, I.T., De Souza, D.V., Rosario, B.D.A. et al. Genotoxicity, oxidative stress, and inflammatory response induced by crack-cocaine: relevance to carcinogenesis. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 14285–14292 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12617-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12617-2

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