ArticleToxicological sciences : an official journal of the Society of Toxicology2003
Thimerosal induces DNA breaks, caspase-3 activation, membrane damage, and cell death in cultured human neurons and fibroblasts.
Article in Toxicological sciences : an official journal of the Society of Toxicology, 2003. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 115 citations in OpenAlex.
- Gallic acid partially attenuates thiomersal-associated oxidative, apoptotic, and CREB/BDNF-related alterations in rat hippocampal and prefrontal cortex tissues and systemic inflammatory responses.Molecular and cellular biochemistry · 2026Article
- The Impact of Mercury from Dental Amalgams on Pregnancy and Childhood: A Health and Risk Assessment Evaluation.Current medicinal chemistry · 2025Review
- Dually Modified Cellulose as a Non-Viral Vector for the Delivery and Uptake of HDAC3 siRNA.Pharmaceutics · 2023Article
- Effects of Treadmill Exercise on Social Behavior in Rats Exposed to Thimerosal with Respect to the Hippocampal Level of GluN1, GluN2A, and GluN2B.Journal of molecular neuroscience : MN · 2022Article
- Effects of Treadmill Exercise on the Expression Level of BAX, BAD, BCL-2, BCL-XL, TFAM, and PGC-1α in the Hippocampus of Thimerosal-Treated Rats.Neurotoxicity research · 2021Article
- Effects of Thimerosal on Lipid Bilayers and Human Erythrocytes: An In Vitro Study.The Journal of membrane biology · 2016Article
- N-3 vs. n-6 fatty acids differentially influence calcium signalling and adhesion of inflammatory activated monocytes: impact of lipid rafts.Inflammation research : official journal of the European Histamine Research Society ... [et al.] · 2016Article
- Increased susceptibility to ethylmercury-induced mitochondrial dysfunction in a subset of autism lymphoblastoid cell lines.Journal of toxicology · 2015Article
- Thimerosal compromises human dendritic cell maturation, IL-12 production, chemokine release, and T-helper polarization.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2014Article
- Suppression by thimerosal of ex-vivo CD4+ T cell response to influenza vaccine and induction of apoptosis in primary memory T cells.PloS one · 2014Article
- Didymin induces apoptosis by inhibiting N-Myc and upregulating RKIP in neuroblastoma.Cancer prevention research (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2012Article
- Administration of thimerosal to infant rats increases overflow of glutamate and aspartate in the prefrontal cortex: protective role of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate.Neurochemical research · 2012Article
- Thimerosal-induced apoptosis in mouse C2C12 myoblast cells occurs through suppression of the PI3K/Akt/survivin pathway.PloS one · 2012Article
- Anti-cancer effects of novel flavonoid vicenin-2 as a single agent and in synergistic combination with docetaxel in prostate cancer.Biochemical pharmacology · 2011Article
- Integrating experimental (in vitro and in vivo) neurotoxicity studies of low-dose thimerosal relevant to vaccines.Neurochemical research · 2011Review
- The plausibility of a role for mercury in the etiology of autism: a cellular perspective.Toxicological and environmental chemistry · 2011Article
- Infants' exposure to aluminum from vaccines and breast milk during the first 6 months.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2010Article
- Thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism: a review of recent epidemiologic studies.The journal of pediatric pharmacology and therapeutics : JPPT : the official journal of PPAG · 2010Article
- Cellular and mitochondrial glutathione redox imbalance in lymphoblastoid cells derived from children with autism.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2009Article
- Arachidonic acid binds 14-3-3zeta, releases 14-3-3zeta from phosphorylated BAD and induces aggregation of 14-3-3zeta.Neurochemical research · 2008Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Thimerosal is an organic mercurial compound used as a preservative in biomedical preparations. Little is known about the reactions of human neuronal and skin cells to its micro- and nanomolar concentrations, which can occur after using thimerosal-containing products. A useful combination of fluorescent techniques for the assessment of thimerosal toxicity is introduced. Short-term thimerosal toxicity was investigated in cultured human cerebral cortical neurons and in normal human fibroblasts. Cells were incubated with 125-nM to 250-microM concentrations of thimerosal for 45 min to 24 h. A 4', 6-diamidino-2-phenylindole dihydrochloride (DAPI) dye exclusion test was used to identify nonviable cells and terminal transferase-based nick-end labeling (TUNEL) to label DNA damage. Detection of active caspase-3 was performed in live cell cultures using a cell-permeable fluorescent caspase inhibitor. The morphology of fluorescently labeled nuclei was analyzed. After 6 h of incubation, the thimerosal toxicity was observed at 2 microM based on the manual detection of the fluorescent attached cells and at a 1-microM level with the more sensitive GENios Plus Multi-Detection Microplate Reader with Enhanced Fluorescence. The lower limit did not change after 24 h of incubation. Cortical neurons demonstrated higher sensitivity to thimerosal compared to fibroblasts. The first sign of toxicity was an increase in membrane permeability to DAPI after 2 h of incubation with 250 microM thimerosal. A 6-h incubation resulted in failure to exclude DAPI, generation of DNA breaks, caspase-3 activation, and development of morphological signs of apoptosis. We demonstrate that thimerosal in micromolar concentrations rapidly induce membrane and DNA damage and initiate caspase-3-dependent apoptosis in human neurons and fibroblasts. We conclude that a proposed combination of fluorescent techniques can be useful in analyzing the toxicity of thimerosal.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.