Effects of oral exposure of pigs to deoxynivalenol (DON) sulfonate (DONS) as the non-toxic derivative of DON on tissue residues of DON and de-epoxy-DON and on DONS blood levels

The Fusarium toxin deoxynivalenol (DON) is of outstanding importance in pig nutrition because of its frequent occurrence in cereal grains at levels high enough to cause adverse effects such as a decrease in feed intake and impairment of the immune system. Thus, simple decontamination procedures would be useful. The present study aimed to examine the effects of wet preservation of triticale contaminated with DON and zearalenone (ZON) with sodium metabisulphite (SBS) on the treatment-related non-toxic derivative of DON (DON-sulfonate, DONS), and on ZON and its metabolites in blood and various physiological specimens of piglets. The uncontaminated control triticale (CON) and the DON-contaminated triticale (FUS) were included in the diets either untreated or SBS treated (CON-SBS, FUS-SBS) and fed to piglets for 28 days starting from weaning. The diet concentrations for DON were 0.156, 0.084, 2.312 and 0.275 mg kg-1, for DONS were <0.05, <0.05, <0.05 and 1.841 mg kg-1, and for ZON were <0.001, 0.006, 0.017, and 0.016 mg kg-1 for each of CON, CON-SBS, FUS and FUS-SBS, respectively. DONS was present in the blood of piglets fed the FUS-SBS at a median concentration of 15.5 ng ml-1 (3-67 ng ml-1), while the median DON concentration amounted to 2 ng ml-1 (0-5 ng ml-1) at the same time. The median DON concentration in the blood of piglets fed the FUS diet reached a median concentration of 10.5 ng ml-1 (5-17 ng ml-1). Moreover, the relative differences between the DON concentrations in other physiological specimens (muscle, liver, kidney, bile and urine) in piglets fed the FUS-SBS and the FUS diet were comparable with the blood DON concentration differences. Although these differences can be taken as an indication for DONS stability after absorption and distribution further studies examining DONS in these other physiological specimens directly are necessary to substantiate this conclusion. Moreover, ZON and α-zearalenol could only be detected in bile and urine where their levels were not influenced by the SBS treatment.