Environmental toxicology and pharmacologyJul 13, 2026

Antioxidant strength relates to different damage and aging rates in skin and lung cells exposed to workplace-level glyphosate

Longevity & Aging Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Jul 14, 2026

Abstract

Exposure to 1.66 µM glyphosate may accelerate cellular aging in lung and skin cells.

Glyphosate treatment led to increased protein antioxidant capacity in lung and skin cells.
Cell viability following hydrogen peroxide exposure was reduced after glyphosate treatment.
Non-protein antioxidant capacity decreased, and markers of oxidative stress increased in fibroblasts after prolonged glyphosate exposure.
Certain genes associated with cellular aging were upregulated in fibroblasts after glyphosate exposure.
Telomere length did not change, but the ability of cells to proliferate was diminished.

Simplified

Glyphosate potential to induce cellular senescence remains an overlooked aspect of its cytotoxicity mechanism. We investigated glyphosate impact on oxidative and senescence markers in lung and dermal fibroblasts. Primary fibroblasts cultured in the absence or presence of 0.59 and 1.66 µM glyphosate were analyzed after the first (P1) and tenth (P10) passages. Upon glyphosate treatment, protein antioxidant capacity (PAC) was upregulated and cell viability to H₂O₂ challenge was reduced in P1 and P10 fibroblasts. Non-protein antioxidant capacity (NPAC) was down-regulated, while malondialdehyde, protein carbonyl, and 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine levels, p16, p21, p53, HO-1, NRF2, and NQO-1 genes were upregulated in P10 fibroblasts. Telomere length remained unchanged, though proliferative capacity was reduced in these cells. Our findings indicate that prolonged exposure to occupationally relevant glyphosate concentrations increases susceptibility to oxidative stress, accelerating senescence in lung and dermal fibroblasts. Lower antioxidant efficiency is potentially linked to faster senescence progression in dermal fibroblasts.

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Competing interests

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

PubMed

Antioxidant strength relates to different damage and aging rates in skin and lung cells exposed to workplace-level glyphosate

Abstract

Full Text

Funding

Competing interests

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