Toxicity of different Fusarium mycotoxins on growth performance, immune responses and efficacy of a mycotoxin degrading enzyme in pigs

This study was aimed at investigating the effects of a defined concentration of Fusarium mycotoxins, deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenone (ZON) incorporated into feeds on growth performance, blood biochemistry, and immune response of pigs and the alleviating effects of a mycotoxin degrading enzyme (MDE) on the toxicity of Fusarium mycotoxins. A total of 48 weaning pigs was randomly allotted to four treatments (two replicates per treatment) including a control, Toxins (1 ppm DON and 250 ppb ZON), Toxin+MDE (1 ppm DON, 250 ppb ZON and 1.5 kg MDE per ton of feed), and MDE alone (1.5 kg per ton of feed) for a 6 week challenged trial. The results in different criteria including growth performance, serum biochemistry parameters, alveolar macrophage activity, antibody titers of pseudorabies (PR) vaccine and cytokine secretion profile showed that DON and ZON consistently impaired pigs after 6 week exposure. Based on these findings, we suggest that the combination of DON and ZON confers a chemical multi-organ toxicity in pigs and MDE provides a partial or complete toxic sparing effect of mycotoxins.