Agents of earthy-musty taste and odor in water: Evaluation of cytotoxicity, genotoxicity and toxicogenomics

Biochemistry and genetics of taste- and odor-producing cyanobacteria

“…T&O compounds have no known toxicological effects towards humans and most organisms across the range of concentrations found in the environment (e.g. Watson, 2013;Burgos et al, 2014); nevertheless, they profoundly influence human behavior. Most people judge the safety and acceptability of food and drink by their aesthetics -taste, odor and color, and changes in these aesthetics, particularly if episodic, can elicit widespread public alarm and distrust in potable water supplies and impart major costs to the drinking water industry in treatment and customer relations (Dietrich and Burlingame, 2015;Dunlap et al, 2015).…”

Geosmin induces genomic instability in the mammalian cell microplate-based comet assay

“…Recently, Burgos et al (2014) assessed the genotoxicity of GEO in human-derived hepatoma cells (HepG2) and could not detect increased frequencies of DNA damage and chromosome mutations in the comet assay (4-and 24-h exposure times) and in the cytokinesis-block micronucleus assay (24-h exposure time), respectively. Therefore, considering the positive results observed in the present study with CHO cells, one can conclude that GEO may be detoxified (generating metabolites unable to promote DNA strand breaks) by the high levels of metabolizing enzymes present in HepG2, though a genotoxic response could not be detected in this cell line.…”

“…Recently, our research group demonstrated the absence of genotoxicity of GEO on a metabolically active human hepatoma cell line (HepG2) (Burgos et al 2014). However, the genotoxic potential of GEO in non-metabolizing eukaryotic cell lines remains unclear.…”

Harmful Algal Blooms

“…These compounds are nontoxic to humans (Burgos et al, 2013), but are often used by the public as a primary indicator of the safety and acceptability of water resources. These compounds are nontoxic to humans (Burgos et al, 2013), but are often used by the public as a primary indicator of the safety and acceptability of water resources.…”

“…These VOCs are highly potent, with OTCs in the ng L −1 range (Table 2). At the range of concentrations typical of most surface waters, geosmin and 2-MIB are nontoxic to humans and most aquatic biota (Burgos et al, 2013;Watson, 2013), but can function in chemosensory predator-prey interactions (Watson et al, 2007b). In some cases, geosmin degrades more slowly than the cyanotoxins MCs (Ho et al, 2012).…”