Abstract
The aim of the study was to investigate the toxic effects of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and efficacy of a probiotic preparation containing L. reuteri, L. plantarum, L. pentosus, L. rhamnosus and L. paracasei and Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeasts to ameliorate their effects in broiler chickens. A total of 168 one-day-old female Ross 308 broilers were randomly allocated to six groups. Three wheat and soybean meal-based diets were prepared: Control diet and diets contaminated with 1 or 5 mg/kg AFB1 supplied in moldy wheat. All diets were unsupplemented or supplemented with probiotic, cold pelleted and fed from 1 to 35 day of life. Feeding diet with 1 mg AFB1/kg did not affect performance, but a diet with 5 mg AFB1 resulted in a significant reduction of feed intake and BWG, both diets induced liver and kidneys enlargement. The probiotic supplementation of the diets partially ameliorated those negative effects and resulted in a significant increase of AFB1 excretion. It was accompanied by the reduced level of AFB1 residues in the liver from 8.9 to 3.7 and from 11.8 to 5.9 µg/kg, in kidneys from 7.9 to 2.5 and from 13.7 to 4.1 µg/kg in birds fed the less and more contaminated diets, respectively. AFB1 exposure caused many severe histopathological changes in the liver and kidneys of broilers, probiotic supplementation significantly reduced the changes of these organs. It may be concluded that the probiotic supplementation can be used to alleviate the negative effects of contamination of broiler feed with AFB1 on bird health and product security.
Highlights
There are many biological toxins present in the natural environment, which may be dangerous for human and animal health
No mortality was recorded among control birds and birds that were fed diets with 1 mg aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) /kg, but during the last week of the experiment 2 birds died in the group fed the diet with 5 mg AFB1 /kg and 1 bird in the group fed the diet with 5 mg AFB1 /kg supplemented with probiotic (Table 1)
Feeding chickens for 35 days with diet contaminated with 1 mg AFB1 /kg had no significant effect on body weight gain (BWG), feed intake and feed conversion ratio (FCR), compared to chickens fed the control diet (Table 1)
Summary
There are many biological toxins present in the natural environment, which may be dangerous for human and animal health. Mycotoxins are currently considered to be among the most dangerous. They are toxic secondary metabolites of some species of filamentous fungi, mainly belonging to the genera Aspergillus, Penicillium and Fusarium [1]. From the chemical point of view, mycotoxins constitute a heterogeneous group of compounds, belonging to over 20 groups. They are, among others, derivatives of coumarin (aflatoxins, ochratoxins), polycyclin lactones (zearalenone, patulin), derivatives of trichothecenes (toxin T-2, nivalenol, deoxynivalenol) [2]. Among 18 types of aflatoxins identified, aflatoxin B1 (AFB1 ) is the most toxic and the most common one, followed by aflatoxins G1 , B2 and G2 , which demonstrate lesser toxicity [3,4]
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