The Impact of Deoxynivalenol on Pigeon Health: Occurrence in Feed, Toxicokinetics and Interaction with Salmonellosis

Abstract

Seed-based pigeon diets could be expected to result in exposure of pigeons to mycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol (DON). Ingestion of low to moderate contamination levels of DON may impair intestinal health, immune function and/or pathogen fitness, resulting in altered host-pathogen interactions and thus different outcome of infections. Here we demonstrate that DON was one of the most frequently detected mycotoxins in seed-based racing pigeons feed, contaminating 5 out of 10 samples (range 177–1,466 μg/kg). Subsequently, a toxicokinetic analysis revealed a low absolute oral bioavailability (F) of DON in pigeons (30.4%), which is comparable to other avian species. Furthermore, semi-quantitative analysis using high-resolution mass spectrometry revealed that DON-3α-sulphate is the major metabolite of DON in pigeons after intravenous as well as oral administration. Following ingestion of DON contaminated feed, the intestinal epithelial cells are exposed to significant DON concentrations which eventually may affect intestinal translocation and colonization of bacteria. Feeding pigeons a DON contaminated diet resulted in an increased percentage of pigeons shedding Salmonella compared to birds fed control diet, 87 ± 17% versus 74 ± 13%, respectively. However, no impact of DON was observed on the Salmonella induced disease signs, organ lesions, faecal and organ Salmonella counts. The presented risk assessment indicates that pigeons are frequently exposed to mycotoxins such as DON, which can affect the outcome of a Salmonella infection. The increasing number of pigeons shedding Salmonella suggests that DON can promote the spread of the bacterium within pigeon populations.

A toxicokinetic study reflecting the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of deoxynivalenol in broiler chickens

“…Devreese et al (2015) revealed that after using high-resolution mass spectrometry (HR-MS) analysis of plasma of turkeys and broiler chickens, DON-3S was the major metabolite after oral gavage, as well as after intravenous injection of 0.75 mg/kg BW of DON. In the same way, after a semi-quantitative analysis using HR-MS, it has been seen that DON is metabolized to DON-3S in pigeons after intravenous or oral bolus administration of the parent mycotoxin (Antonissen et al 2016). After a single intra-crop bolus administration of 0.5 mg/kg body weight DON to broiler chickens aged 21 d and weighed 1 kg, DON-3S was detected and no DON was found (Lauwers et al 2019).…”

“…This is again comparable to turkeys with a clearance of 0.13 L/min and is rapidly eliminated (T 1/2elimination = 37.2 min) upon intravenous DON injection at 0.75 mg/kg BW (Devreese et al 2015). Likewise, the toxicokinetic study of DON in pigeon revealed that upon intravenous administration of 0.3 mg/kg BW, the total body clearance was 0.20 L/min kg and the elimination half-life was 20.4 min (Antonissen et al 2016). The rapid elimination is probably linked with the polarity of DON and the lower volume of distribution.…”

“…Prelusky et al (1986) found low levels of radioactivity in plasma (less than 1% of the dose administrated), when, orally administered 2.2 mg/bird/day of radiolabelled DON (14C), to White Leghorn hens by crop intubation. The absolute oral bioavailability of DON mycotoxin was found to be low and accounts to only 19.3% in broiler chickens, 20.9% in Turkeys and 30.4% in pigeons (Osselaere et al 2013;Devreese et al 2015;Antonissen et al 2016). Furthermore, Broekaert et al (2014) showed that the absorbed fraction of DON in broiler chickens, after oral DON administration (0.5 mg/kg BW) was only 10.6%, however, in pigs, the absorbed fractions were 100% for DON, which may explain the difference of susceptibility to DON mycotoxicosis between these two species.…”

Biomarkers of Deoxynivalenol Toxicity in Chickens with Special Emphasis on Metabolic and Welfare Parameters

“…Since 2014, and with the improvement of the analytical methods it was reported that the most abundant metabolite in case of broiler chickens after receiving DON mycotoxin was a phase II metabolite named DON-3 sulphate (DON-3S) [ 35 ]. Still, the formation of DON-3S was observed also in turkeys, pigeons and laying hens [ 30 , 37 , 42 , 43 ]. Furthermore, in poultry no DON glucuronidation has been observed [ 30 ].…”

Galliformes and Columbiformes

“…Hundreds of mycotoxins are known. The most common are aflatoxins and fusariotoxin (e.g., T-2 toxin and deoxynivalenol or DON) (Antonissen et al, 2016;U.S. Geological Survey, 1990).…”