Heavy Metals and Human Health: Possible Exposure Pathways and the Competition for Protein Binding Sites

Abstract

Heavy metals enter the human body through the gastrointestinal tract, skin, or via inhalation. Toxic metals have proven to be a major threat to human health, mostly because of their ability to cause membrane and DNA damage, and to perturb protein function and enzyme activity. These metals disturb native proteins' functions by binding to free thiols or other functional groups, catalyzing the oxidation of amino acid side chains, perturbing protein folding, and/or displacing essential metal ions in enzymes. The review shows the physiological and biochemical effects of selected toxic metals interactions with proteins and enzymes. As environmental contamination by heavy metals is one of the most significant global problems, some detoxification strategies are also mentioned.

Keywords: bioremediation; exposure; heavy metals; interactions; proteins.

Figure 1

Routes of exposure, the impact of toxic metals on human health, and the ways of limiting the risk caused by contact with these elements (large arrow on the left). These adverse effects are caused by direct exposure to the toxic metals in the environment or indirectly due to anthropogenic activity.

Figure 2

General mechanisms utilized by bacteria, and plant cells for metal resistance and detoxification, which can be adapted in bioremediation techniques. Based on [130].