Toxicant-Induced Organ Injury in Animal Models: Biomarkers, Pathophysiology, and Therapeutic Interventions

Environmental and occupational exposure to chemical toxicants—including pesticides, heavy metals, industrial pollutants, and food contaminants—poses a significant and growing threat to human and animal health worldwide. Despite advances in risk assessment and regulatory frameworks, the molecular mechanisms underpinning toxicant-induced organ damage remain incompletely understood, and effective therapeutic strategies are limited. Animal models continue to serve as indispensable tools for elucidating the pathophysiology of toxic organ injury and for evaluating candidate protective agents before clinical translation. By uniting toxicologists, pharmacologists, pathologists, and biomedical researchers around a shared platform, this Research Topic seeks to accelerate the translation of preclinical findings into actionable insights for public health protection.Toxicant-induced organ injury represents a growing global health burden, yet the precise molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying such damage remain incompletely characterized, and evidence-based therapeutic strategies are still limited. This Research Topic aims to address these gaps by assembling a comprehensive, multidisciplinary collection of original research articles, reviews, and systematic reviews focusing on three core themes: (1) the identification and validation of biomarkers for early detection and monitoring of toxicant-induced injury across major target organs, including the liver, kidney, brain, heart, lungs, and reproductive system; (2) the molecular and cellular mechanisms driving organ damage, with emphasis on oxidative stress, ferroptosis, apoptosis, autophagy, inflammation, and epigenetic alterations; and (3) the evaluation of natural products, synthetic compounds, nanomedicine-based formulations, and other pharmacological interventions as protective or therapeutic agents in experimentally induced toxicity models. Recent advances in omics technologies, molecular docking, and network pharmacology provide unprecedented opportunities to accelerate mechanistic discoveries and therapeutic innovation in this field.Contributions are welcomed across a broad range of toxicant classes—such as organophosphates, neonicotinoids, pyrethroids, mycotoxins, heavy metals, and endocrine disruptors—and across diverse animal species, including rodents, fish, and poultry. Studies integrating advanced methodologies such as transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, molecular docking, network pharmacology, and histopathological scoring systems are particularly encouraged. The Topic also invites submissions exploring the intersection of toxicology with the One Health concept, recognizing that environmental contaminants simultaneously threaten human populations, domestic animals, and wildlife ecosystems. We welcome original research articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and narrative reviews. Submissions should employ rigorous experimental designs with appropriate animal models and validated biomarkers to ensure scientific rigor and translational relevance. Topic editors: Ashraf Albrakati, Hashem O. Alsaab, Nicoleta Anca Șuțan Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80500/toxicant-induced-organ-injury-in-animal-models-biomarkers-pathophysiology-and-therapeutic-interventions