On the interactions between Fusarium toxin-contaminated wheat and non-starch-polysaccharide hydrolysing enzymes in turkey diets on performance, health and carry-over of deoxynivalenol and zearalenone.

1. Diets with increasing proportions of Fusarium toxin-contaminated wheat (0, 170, 340 and 510 g CW/kg) were fed to male turkeys (BUT Big 6) from d 21 to d 56 of age. Each diet was tested with or without a non-starch-polysaccharide (NSP) hydrolysing enzyme preparation. Dietary deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenone (ZON) concentrations were successively increased up to approximately 5.4 and 0.04 mg/kg, respectively. 2. Weight gain decreased slightly with increasing proportions of CW, by 1.6, 0.7 and 3.6%, whereas other performance parameters remained unaffected. NSP enzyme supplements to the diets had no influence. 3. The weight of the emptied jejunum plus ileum, relative to live weight, decreased in a dose-related fashion whereby the NSP enzyme exerted an additional weight-decreasing effect. A similar weight-decreasing NSP enzyme effect was noted for heart weights. Activity of glutamate dehydrogenase in serum was significantly increased in groups fed the diets with the highest CW proportion, whereas gamma-glutamyl-transferase remained unaltered. 4. Viscosity in the small intestine was significantly reduced by supplementing the diets with the NSP enzyme. This effect successively decreased with increasing proportions of the CW. 5. Concentrations of DON and of its de-epoxidised metabolite de-epoxy-DON in plasma, liver and breast meat were lower than the detection limits of 2 ng/ml (plasma) and 4 ng/g, respectively, of the applied HPLC method. DON concentration in bile reached up to 13 to 23 ng/ml whereas de-epoxy-DON concentration was lower than 4 ng/ml. 6. ZON or its metabolites were not detectable in plasma, liver or breast meat (detection limits of the HPLC method were 1, 0.5 and 5 ng/g for ZON, alpha-zearalenol (ZOL) and beta-ZOL, respectively). Concentrations of ZON and alpha-ZOL in bile increased with dietary ZON concentration. The mean proportions of ZON, alpha-ZOL and beta-ZOL of the sum of all three metabolites were 19, 77 and 4%, respectively.