Abstract
Ruminant diets include cereals, protein feeds, their by-products as well as hay and grass, grass/legume, whole-crop maize, small grain or sorghum silages. Furthermore, ruminants are annually or seasonally fed with grazed forage in many parts of the World. All these forages could be contaminated by several exometabolites of mycotoxigenic fungi that increase and diversify the risk of mycotoxin exposure in ruminants compared to swine and poultry that have less varied diets. Evidence suggests the greatest exposure for ruminants to some regulated mycotoxins (aflatoxins, trichothecenes, ochratoxin A, fumonisins and zearalenone) and to many other secondary metabolites produced by different species of Alternaria spp. (e.g., AAL toxins, alternariols, tenuazonic acid or 4Z-infectopyrone), Aspergillus flavus (e.g., kojic acid, cyclopiazonic acid or β-nitropropionic acid), Aspergillus fuminatus (e.g., gliotoxin, agroclavine, festuclavines or fumagillin), Penicillium roqueforti and P. paneum (e.g., mycophenolic acid, roquefortines, PR toxin or marcfortines) or Monascus ruber (citrinin and monacolins) could be mainly related to forage contamination. This review includes the knowledge of mycotoxin occurrence reported in the last 15 years, with special emphasis on mycotoxins detected in forages, and animal toxicological issues due to their ingestion. Strategies for preventing the problem of mycotoxin feed contamination under farm conditions are discussed.
Highlights
Mycotoxins are defined as molecules of low molecular weight produced by fungi that elicit a toxic response through a natural route of exposure both in humans and other vertebrate animals [1,2,3]
Presence of Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus has been reported in ensiled products, such as MS and high moisture maize, and the most important mycotoxins produced by these organisms are AFs (AFB1, AFB2, AFG1 and AFG2)
Species belonging to Penicillium section Roquefortorum such as P. roqueforti and P. paneum [11,110] are considered some of the most prevailing post-harvest fungi found in silages [15,37,81,84,128]
Summary
Mycotoxins are defined as molecules of low molecular weight produced by fungi that elicit a toxic response through a natural route of exposure both in humans and other vertebrate animals [1,2,3] They are often very stable molecules and all are secondary metabolites of molds belonging to several genera, in particular Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Penicillium spp. In the last 15 years, an emerging issue related to mycotoxin contaminations of forages and factors affecting their occurrence at pre-harvest in the field or during ensiling and storage of forage crops has progressed These aspects have been the basis of different review papers recently published [5,8,28,37,39,57,58,59,60].
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