Summary
This 2016 mechanistic review by Jacqueline Michelle Ordemann and Rachel Narehood Austin in Metallomics explores how Pb²⁺ substitution for Zn²⁺ in zinc-finger proteins contributes to lead neurotoxicity at the molecular level. Zinc-finger transcription factors are essential for normal brain development, and lead’s chemical similarity to zinc allows it to bind these protein motifs and disrupt their structure and function. The review provides molecular-level mechanism for the developmental neurotoxicity endpoint that anchors EFSA 2010 and the modern regulatory framing that no safe blood lead level has been demonstrated for children.
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Update history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| a8052bb | 2026-08-09 | major | 3 sections added; narrative text revised |