Zingiber officinale mediated aflatoxins cleanup in aqueous medium: Kinetics, toxicity and cytoprotective effect

Aflatoxins contaminate a variety of food and feeds and have a serious health concern to humans and animals. The present work investigated the effect of Zingiber officinale (ginger) for the reduction of aflatoxin B1, G1, B2, and G2. Ginger juice reduced 70.2 ± 0.1%, 99.76 ± 0.0%, 56.8 ± 0.5%, and 98.6 ± 0.0% of aflatoxin B1, G1, B2, and G2, respectively. The ginger-mediated aflatoxin reduction conditions were optimized and the most convincing results were observed at 45 °C and 55 °C where almost 100% reduction of aflatoxins was observed. The aflatoxin reduction efficiency of ginger juice was significantly declined after dialysis (12,000–14,000 Da molecular cutoff) and heating. The degraded products were analyzed by liquid chromatography–mass spectroscopy and revealed the vulnerability of furan and lactone rings of aflatoxin towards the components of ginger. Furthermore, the degraded products showed a slightly reduced toxicity towards embryos of zebrafish compared to the aflatoxins. Ginger exhibited cytoprotection against aflatoxin B1-induced toxicity in HaCaT cells by blocking DNA fragmentation, apoptotic cell death, and reactive oxygen species generation. Also, ginger upregulated the cellular antioxidant markers, catalase, glutathione reductase, superoxide dismutase-1 (SOD-1), and superoxide dismutase-2 (SOD-2) thus balancing the redox status and rescuing cells from aflatoxin B1 induced stress.