Abstract
Mycotoxins have the ability to impact health of humans and animals. Especially livestock animals are very often affected by receiving mycotoxins via contaminated feed. While adsorption to clay-based minerals seems to work very well for deactivating aflatoxins in animal feed this approach has not been scientifically proven for other mycotoxins. Microbial degradation or biotransformation poses an alternative strategy to alleviate and ameliorate mycotoxins in animal feedstuffs. Many mixed and pure cultures of microorganisms have been described to degrade various mycotoxins. But for a practical application those microorganisms have to meet many requirements (metabolites must be nontoxic, rapid degradation of mycotoxin, safety of microorganisms applied, ability to work in gastrointestinal environment etc.). During the last decade our research group was able to isolate and characterize microorganisms (Eubacterium BBSH 797, T, mycotoxinivorans, bacterium #144) which are capable of detoxifying deoxynivalenol, ochratoxin A, zearalenone and fumonisins. These microbes also meet the above mentioned requirements.
