Studies on the toxicity of deoxynivalenol (DON), sodium metabisulfite, DON-sulfonate (DONS) and de-epoxy-DON for porcine peripheral blood mononuclear cells and the Intestinal Porcine Epithelial Cell lines IPEC-1 and IPEC-J2, and on effects of DON and DONS

The in vitro effects of deoxynivalenol (DON), de-epoxy-DON, DON-sulfonate (DONS) and sodium metabisulfite (Na2S2O5, SBS) on porcine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), and on the Intestinal Porcine Epithelial Cell lines IPEC-1 and IPEC-J2 were examined by using the MTT assay.In addition, an uncontaminated and a DON contaminated triticale were included in diets either untreated (CON, FUS) or SBS treated (CON-SBS, FUS-SBS) and fed to piglets for 28 d starting from weaning. The diet concentrations of DON and DONS amounted to 0.156, 2.312, 0.084 and 0.275 mg and to <0.05, <0.05, <0.05 and 1.841 mg/kg, respectively. PBMC of the so-exposed piglets were also subjected to the MTT assay.Neither DONS and SBS nor de-epoxy-DON affected the viability of PBMC, IPEC-1 and IPEC-J2 significantly up to concentrations of 17, 8 and 23 μM, respectively. For DON, IC50 values were estimated at 1.2 ± 0.1, 1.3 ± 0.5 and 3.0 ± 0.8 μM for PBMC, IPEC-1 and IPEC-J2, respectively.PBMC from piglets fed the SBS treated diets were characterized by a significantly decreased stimulation index and an increased IgA supernatant concentration with the SBS effect being significantly more pronounced after feeding the FUS-SBS diet. Further studies should clarify the possible impact of SBS on the porcine immune system.