Comparative investigation of the potential of glyphosate and glyphosate-based formulations (GBFs) to cause oxidative stress and DNA damage in human skin and liver cell systems

Glyphosate is an herbicide found worldwide in glyphosate-based formulations (GBFs). Although glyphosate appears to have a low toxicity profile for humans and mammals, conflicting reports exist regarding the risk for cancer in humans. US-EPA and European regulatory agencies have described glyphosate as unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans. However, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A)", citing "mechanistic data provide strong evidence for genotoxicity and oxidative stress". Given these discrepancies, the Division of Translational Toxicology at NIEHS designed an experimental strategy to expand mechanistic evidence and address critical gaps within existing literature (e.g., mechanistic evaluations of glyphosate alongside GBFs, inclusion of context-defining positive controls). Cell morphology, viability, H2O2 and γH2AX formation were assayed in human keratinocytes (HaCaT), previously cited by IARC, and human hepatocytes (HepaRG™) to derive benchmark concentrations and fold-change response metrics. Our findings revealed glyphosate alone was weakly and inconsistently bioactive for oxidative stress and DNA damage when compared to positive controls. In contrast, most of the 13 GBFs evaluated were more clearly bioactive with no apparent correlation to varied glyphosate concentrations. Hierarchical clustering of biological responses revealed some bioactive GBFs to cluster near well-characterized positive controls for oxidative stress, while four GBFs clustered more similar to negative controls and glyphosate. Collectively, this study provides a robust dataset with context-defining results that advance our understanding of the hazard potential of GBFs while revealing glyphosate is likely not a primary driver of oxidative stress from GBF exposures.