Investigation of the hepatic glucuronidation pattern of the Fusarium mycotoxin deoxynivalenol in various species.

Deoxynivalenol (DON) is one of the most abundant mycotoxins contaminating food and feed worldwide. Upon absorption, the major portion of the toxin is excreted by humans and animal species as glucuronide. However, consistent in vitro data on DON glucuronidation are lacking. In the present study, the metabolism of DON was investigated using liver microsomes from humans and six different animal species. It was shown that all animal and human liver microsomes led to the formation of up to three different mono-O-glucuronides with significant interspecies differences. While the activity of human liver microsomes was low (0.8 to 2.2 pmol·min(-1)·mg(-1)), bovine liver and rat liver microsomes conjugated DON with activities of 525 pmol·min(-1)·mg(-1) and 80 pmol·min(-1)·mg(-1), respectively.