“…Chronic aflatoxin exposure has also been associated with growth faltering (12,13), and in independent studies from the Gambia, intestinal enteropathy, characterized by "intestinal leakiness," has been associated with early childhood growth faltering (2,25). Given that (i) enterocytes have the metabolic enzymes to generate the reactive aflatoxin epoxide (4), (ii) aflatoxin exposure is frequent at high levels (38,39) in regions reporting an association between growth faltering and intestinal leakiness (2,25), and (iii) aflatoxin exposure has been associated with infant growth faltering (13,14,39), it is plausible that observations of aflatoxin-associated growth faltering may be explained at least in part by a direct action of the aflatoxin epoxide within the enterocytes. To assess this direct toxic effect of AFB 1 on the Caco-2 monolayer, we studied its effect on monolayer integrity, using TER measurements.…”