Human Health Impact of Cyanobacterial Toxins
Selim Soydan1, Oytun Erbaş1
1ERBAS Institute of Experimental Medicine, Illinois, USA & Gebze, Turkey
Keywords: Cyanobacteria, cyanotoxin, cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, neurotoxicity
Abstract
Cyanobacteria are prokaryotic organisms that differ from other eukaryotic algae by the absence of membranous organelles and plastids. Being primary producers, they have very important duties in the biosphere. Being phototrophs, they have a high amount of oxygen production in the biosphere. In addition to its positive aspects, cyanobacteria produce various toxins against environmental influences. The increase of these toxins in fresh waters and seas poses a great threat to humans, animals and plants. The diversity of toxins develops in direct proportion to their mechanism of action. Cyanotoxins, which have negative effects on human health, are specific with their hepatotoxic, neurotoxic, genotoxic, cytotoxic and effects. Toxic cases that can lead to death may occur if the necessary interventions are not made in the poisonings that may occur due to the exposure of people to cyanotoxins. In this review, the toxic effects of cyanotoxins on human health were discussed according to their mechanism of action.
Cite this article as: Soydan S, Erbaş O. Human Health Impact of Cyanobacterial Toxins. JEB Med Sci 2022;3(2):103-108.
The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.