Toxicological approaches of zearalenone

Abstract

Zearalenone (ZEN), an estrogenic mycotoxin produced by several species of Fusarium, is often detected in cereals such as wheat, barley and corn, and animal feeds based on these contaminated grains, cause infertility, absorption of the fetus, enlargement of the uteri, and vaginal prolapse in livestock. The mechanism of action of ZEN can be explained by the fact that ZEN binds to estrogenic receptor.Toxicological approaches demonstrated that ZEN is positive in Rec-assay with Bacillus subtilis (Ueno et al., 1976) but negative in Ame's test using Salmonella-microsomes and S-9 mix (Wehner et al., 1978), and it is teratogenic in rats (Ruddick et al., 1976). Ruddick has reported the incidence of delayed or absent skeleton ossification increased with increasing dosage; the rib, sternum, tarsal bones and the parietal bone were those commonly affected.In the present paper, the cytotoxity, the chromosome aberration and the teratogenecity of ZEN were examined in order to clarify the toxicological effect of ZEN.