A08_S2.4 Mycotoxins – case study DON volunteer study

For the first time, a large-scale human intervention study was conducted to unravel the urinary excretion profile and metabolism of the toxic food borne fungal metabolite deoxynivalenol (DON) and its modified form deoxynivalenol-3-glucoside (DON-3-glucoside). DON and DON-3-glucoside are common contaminants in cereals and cereal-based food products, and contribute significantly to the dietary intake of mycotoxins. Twenty volunteers (average age 32 years old, 55% women and 45 % men) were restricted in consuming cereals and cereal-based foods for 4 days. At day 3, a single bolus of 1 µg/kg body weight of DON or DON-3-glucoside was administered, and a 24-h urine collection was performed. The urine was analysed for DON, DON-3-glucoside, 3-ADON, 15-ADON, deepoxy-deoxynivalenol (DOM-1), deoxynivalenol-3-glucuronide (DON-3-glucuronide) and deoxynivalenol-15-glucuronide (DON-15-glucuronide). The urinary biomarker-analysis revealed that DON and DON-3-glucoside were rapidly absorbed, distributed, metabolized and excreted. Sixty-four % of the administered DON and 53% of DON-3-glucoside was recovered. DON-15-glucuronide was the most prominent urinary biomarker followed by free DON and DON-3-glucuronide. Moreover, correlations among the presence of DON-15-glucuronide and DON-3-glucuronide were observed (after 4 hours (r = 0.784) and 24 hours (r = 0.563)). The obtained results are imperative to construct a standardized method to estimate DON-intake by means of urinary biomarkers.