Quercetin protects human peripheral blood mononuclear cells from OTA-induced oxidative stress, genotoxicity, and inflammation.

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is one of the most abundant food-contaminating mycotoxins world wide, and is detrimental to human and animal health. This study evaluated the protective effect of quercetin against OTA-induced cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, and inflammatory response in lymphocytes. Cytotoxicity determined by MTT assay revealed IC20 value of OTA to be 20 µM, which was restored to near control values by pretreatment with quercetin. Oxidative stress parameters such as antioxidant enzymes, LPO and PCC levels indicated that quercetin exerted a protective effect on OTA-induced oxidative stress. Quercetin exerted an antigenotoxic effect on OTA-induced genotoxicity, by significantly reducing the number of structural aberrations in chromosomes and comet parameters like, % olive tail moment from 2.76 ± 0.02 to 0.56 ± 0.02 and % tail DNA from 56.23 ± 2.56 to 12.36 ± 0.56 as determined by comet assay. OTA-induced NO, TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-8 were significantly reduced in the quercetin pretreated samples indicating its anti-inflammatory role. Our results demonstrate for the first time that quercetin exerts a cytoprotective effect against OTA-induced oxidative stress, genotoxicity, and inflammation in lymphocytes.