Metal compounds such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, mercury, and nickel are classified as carcinogens affecting human health through occupational and environmental exposure. However, the underlying mechanisms involved in tumor formation are not well clarified. Interference of metal homeostasis may result in oxidative stress which represents an imbalance between production of free radicals and the system’s ability to readily detoxify reactive intermediates. This event consequently causes DNA damage, lipid peroxidation, protein modification, and possibly symptomatic effects for various diseases including cancer. This review discusses predominant modes of action and numerous molecular markers. Attention is paid to metal-induced generation of free radicals, the phenomenon of oxidative stress, damage to DNA, lipid, and proteins, responsive signal transduction pathways with major roles in cell growth and development, and roles of antioxidant enzymatic and DNA repair systems. Interaction of non-enzymatic antioxidants (carotenoids, flavonoids, glutathione, selenium, vitamin C, vitamin E, and others) with cellular oxidative stress markers (catalase, glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase) as well as certain regulatory factors, including AP-1, NF-κB, Ref-1, and p53 is also reviewed. Dysregulation of protective pathways, including cellular antioxidant network against free radicals as well as DNA repair deficiency is related to oncogenic stimulation. These observations provide evidence that emerging oxidative stress-responsive regulatory factors and DNA repair proteins are putative predictive factors for tumor initiation and progression.

Due to the rapid advent in genomics technologies and attention to ecological risk assessment, the term “ecotoxicogenomics” has recently emerged to describe integration of omics studies (i.e., transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and epigenomics) into ecotoxicological fields. Ecotoxicogenomics is defined as study of an entire set of genes or proteins expression in ecological organisms to provide insight on environmental toxicity, offering benefit in ecological risk assessment. Indeed, Daphnia is a model species to study aquatic environmental toxicity designated in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s toxicity test guideline and to investigate expression patterns using ecotoxicology-oriented genomics tools. Our main purpose is to demonstrate the potential utility of gene expression profiling in ecotoxicology by identifying novel biomarkers and relevant modes of toxicity in Daphnia magna. These approaches enable us to address adverse phenotypic outcomes linked to particular gene function(s) and mechanistic understanding of aquatic ecotoxicology as well as exploration of useful biomarkers. Furthermore, key challenges that currently face aquatic ecotoxicology (e.g., predicting toxicant responses among a broad spectrum of phytogenetic groups, predicting impact of temporal exposure on toxicant responses) necessitate the parallel use of other model organisms, both aquatic and terrestrial. By investigating gene expression profiling in an environmentally important organism, this provides viable support for the utility of ecotoxicogenomics.

XPG, a structure-specific DNA endonuclease responsible for the 3' incision of DNA lesions during nucleotide excision repair (NER), is associated with high risk of skin cancer as well as skeletal, neurological and developmental abnormalities when functionally defective. These observations have led to the model wherein the endonuclease activity of XPG is important for NER. Herein, we first demonstrate a sensitive assay of XPG cleavage activity using direct nuclear extracts as an XPG source. This method provided quantitative evaluation of the activity of endogenous XPG endonuclease derived from cells with high reproducibility. Our new assay takes advantage of 3'-end oligolabeling of the bubble-shaped substrate. Our results demonstrate efficient cleavage of the model substrate in two XPG wild-type cell lines (human fibroblasts and RKO colon cancer cells) in a time- and dose-dependent manner. In addition, XPG-deficient cells manifested lower cleavage activity relative to normal XPG cells, indicating that the incision activity of XPG was intrinsic in our methodology. It was also found that 7 mM MgCl2 and buffer pH 6.8 resulted in optimal endonucleolytic activity. Based on these results, our modified methodology has potential for quantitative monitoring of XPG cleavage activity in any cell type or tissue of interest.