{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]],"date-time":"2026-10-07T12:58:44Z","timestamp":1791377924971,"version":"4.3.2"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,26]],"date-time":"2023-03-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1679788800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100002383","name":"King Saud University","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["RSP2023R357"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["RSP2023R357"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100002383","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Life"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The mycotoxin citrinin, which can contaminate food, is a major global concern. Citrinin is regarded as an inevitable pollutant in foods and feed since fungi are widely present in the environment. To identify contentious toxicity and lessen its severity by understanding the targets of citrinin in the human body and the impacted biosynthetic pathways, we analyzed the production of citrinin from Aspergillus flavus and Penicillium notatum and used a thorough bioinformatics analysis to characterize the toxicity and predict genes and protein targets for it. The predicted median fatal dosage (LD50) for citrinin was 105 mg\/kg weight, and it belonged to toxicity class 3 (toxic if swallowed). Citrinin was found to be well absorbed by human intestinal epithelium and was a Pgp nonsubstrate (permeability glycoprotein), which means that once it is absorbed, it cannot be pumped out, hence leading to bioconcentration or biomagnification in the human body. The main targets of toxicity were casp3, TNF, IL10, IL1B, BAG3, CCNB1, CCNE1, and CDC25A, and the biological pathways implicated were signal transduction involved in DNA damage checkpoints, cellular and chemical responses to oxidative stress, DNA damage response signal transduction by P53, stress-activated protein kinase signaling cascade, netrin\u2013UNC5B signaling, PTEN gene regulation, and immune response. Citrinin was linked to neutrophilia, squamous cell carcinoma, Fanconi anemia, leukemia, hepatoblastoma, and fatty liver diseases. The transcription factors E2F1, HSF1, SIRT1, RELA, NFKB, JUN, and MYC were found to be responsible. When data mining was performed on citrinin targets, the top five functional descriptions were a cell\u2019s response to an organic cyclic compound, the netrin\u2013UNC5B signaling pathway, lipids and atherosclerosis, thyroid cancer, and controlling the transcription of the PTEN gene.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/life13040880","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,27]],"date-time":"2023-03-27T04:31:21Z","timestamp":1679891481000},"page":"880","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":36,"title":["Food Toxicity of Mycotoxin Citrinin and Molecular Mechanisms of Its Potential Toxicity Effects through the Implicated Targets Predicted by Computer-Aided Multidimensional Data Analysis"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5622-0841","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Seema","family":"Zargar","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biochemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11495, Saudi Arabia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5623-2685","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Tanveer A.","family":"Wani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"887","DOI":"10.13005\/bbra\/2111","article-title":"Effect of Aqueous Extract of Rhazyastricta Decne on Citrinin Production and Fungal Biomass by Pencillium notatum and Optimization of Experimental Design Using Response Surface Methodology","volume":"13","author":"Zargar","year":"2016","journal-title":"Biosci. 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