Brilliant Blue Dyes in Daily Food: How Could Purinergic System Be Affected?

Table 1

The main studies of the Brilliant Blue dyes effects in vitro and in vivo assays.

Brilliant Blue FCF				Ref.
In vitro assays	Phosphatases activities modulation	PTP1B function	IC50 = 91 µM	[21]
		YPTP1 function	IC50 > 120 µM
	Selective pannexin-1 activity inhibition		IC50 = 0.27 µM	[43]
	Mitochondrial respiration inhibition			[22]
In vivo assays	Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oral absorption limits		12 mg/kg/day	[22]
	Higher gastrointestinal permeability in sepsis		Systemic absorption enteral feedings after tracheostomy for obstructive apnea	[22]
			Systemic absorption chronic renal failure	[22]
			It leads to death	[85]
	No evident alterations (even in carcinogenicity studies) in the animal models used			[86, 87]
	Increase in important hepatic health-indicative enzymes		Alanine transaminase, aspartate transaminase, alkaline phosphatase, and bilirubin	[88]
Brilliant Blue R
In vitro assays	Biochemical analyses and protein quantitation in protein-dye binding assays			[23–26]
	Electrophoresis studies; microscopy			[31–33]
	Polyacrylamide gels in electrophoresis			[30]
Brilliant Blue G
In vitro assays	Biochemical analyses and protein quantitation			[23–26]
	The administration of BBG reduced the agglomeration of pathogenic prion protein (PrPres) in vitro			[73]
	Electrophoresis studies			[31–33]
	Microscopy studies			[34, 35]
	Polyacrylamide gels in electrophoresis			[30]
	Bradford assay			[36]
	Virus-like particles purification			[37]
	P2X7R noncompetitive antagonist	IC50 = 12 nM (rat)		[10]
		IC50 = 265 nM (human)		[10]
		P2X7-induced calcium influx	pIC50 < 4 (mouse); pIC50 = 5.09 (rat); pIC50 < 4 (human)	[96]
		P2X7-associated pore formation (Yopro-1 uptake)	pIC50 = 6.71 (BALB/c mouse); pIC50 = 6.34 (C57BL/6 mouse); pIC50 = 6.24 (rat); pIC50 = 5.71 (human)	[96]
	Pannexin-1 antagonist	Oocytes-expressing Pannexin-1-induced ionic currents	IC50 ~ 3 µM	[97]
In vivo assays	Ophthalmic procedures			[54, 55]
	Visualization of anatomical structures during vitreoretinal surgery			[57]
	Vitreoretinal surgical procedures			[58]
	Deleterious consequences of ATP release following brain injury	Microglial activation in the rat nucleus accumbens (NAc)		[59]
		Inhibition of ATP-induced caspase-3 activity
	Traumatic spinal cord injury	Local astrocytes and microglia activity inhibition		[60]
		Inhibition of neutrophil infiltration
	Huntington’s disease (HD)	BBG impaired the symptomatology (body weight loss, motor-coordination deficits, and neuronal apoptosis)		[61]
	Seltzer model of neuropathic pain	Acute thermal nociception		[62]
	Freund’s adjuvant (CFA) pain model	Moderate effect in inflammatory pain and edema
	BBG toxicity assays in Drosophila melanogaster	No impairment on survival of the insect model (LC50 = 38 mM). No neurotoxic effects		[63]
	Suppression of P2X7R-induced ganglion cell death			[64]
	Protective neuronal effects upon oxygen-glucose deprivation	The brain damaged area following ischemia was diminished in the animals pretreated with BBG, compared to treatment with vehicle alone		[67]
	Cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury	BBG (10 μg) protected against transient global cerebral I/R injury, augmented survival rates, retarded I/R-induced learning and memory deficits, and suppressed I/R-induced neuronal death, DNA cleavage, glial activation and inflammatory cytokine overexpression in the hippocampus		[68]
	Traumatic brain injury (TBI) induced by posterior cerebral edema	BBG (25 mg/kg) orally administered before the TBI induction diminished the TBI effects		[69]
	Duchenne muscular dystrophy (mdx/mdx mouse)	BBG treatment recovered the CD62L in blood lymphocytes and it maintained its ability to migrate to the heart		[71]
		Treatment with BBG impaired the number of degeneration-regeneration cycles in mdx skeletal muscles in vivo		[72]
	Agglomeration of pathogenic prion protein (PrPres)	Diminished number of PrPres in infected mouse brain after the administration of BBG		[73]
	Chronic renal dysfunctions renal injury induced by hypertension	BBG suppressed the diuresis pressure threshold in F344 rats		[78]
	Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)	The administration of BBG inhibited the progression of ALS		[79]