Bunch Heeyoun, Park Jungeun, Choe Hyeseung, Mostafiz Md Munir, Kim Jang-Eok, Lee Kyeong-Yeoll
School of Applied Biosciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea.
Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea.
Heliyon. 2020 Feb 4;6(2):e03351. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03351. eCollection 2020 Feb.
Methyl benzoate (MB) is a small, hydrophobic organic compound that is isolated from the freshwater fern, . Because of its pleasant odor, it has been used as a fragrance and flavor enhancer. In addition, it is used to attract orchid bees for pollination in the farm and has been tested for its potential to be developed as a green pesticide targeting a diverse group of insects. In spite of its wide applications, the safety of MB to humans remains poorly understood. In this study, we tested the cytotoxicity of MB against cultured human cells, including kidney, colon, and neuronal cells. Furthermore, other natural and synthetic benzoic acids such as ethyl benzoate (EB) and vinyl benzoate (VB) were compared with MB for their similarity and broad commercial and industrial applications. We found that MB and VB have the least and most overall toxicity to the tested human cells, respectively. In addition, the expression of some genes involved in cell cycle, protein quality control, and neurotransmission such as , , and genes was differentially expressed in the presence of these chemicals, most noticeably in treatment of VB. Our study provided the LC values of these benzoic acids for human cells and suggested their mild toxicity that should be considered in the industrial and agricultural applications to be within safe limits.
苯甲酸甲酯（MB）是一种小型疏水性有机化合物，从淡水蕨类植物中分离得到。因其气味宜人，它被用作香料和增味剂。此外，它还用于在农场吸引兰花蜂进行授粉，并已测试其作为针对多种昆虫的绿色农药的开发潜力。尽管应用广泛，但MB对人类的安全性仍知之甚少。在本研究中，我们测试了MB对培养的人类细胞（包括肾细胞、结肠细胞和神经元细胞）的细胞毒性。此外，还将其他天然和合成苯甲酸（如苯甲酸乙酯（EB）和苯甲酸乙烯酯（VB））与MB进行比较，因其具有相似性以及广泛的商业和工业应用。我们发现，MB和VB对测试的人类细胞的总体毒性分别最小和最大。此外，一些参与细胞周期、蛋白质质量控制和神经传递的基因（如 、 和 基因）的表达在这些化学物质存在时差异表达，在VB处理时最为明显。我们的研究提供了这些苯甲酸对人类细胞的半数致死浓度值，并表明它们的毒性较轻，在工农业应用中应将其控制在安全范围内予以考虑。
