Fusarium verticillioides Mycotoxin Production

The fungal strain Fusarium verticillioides (MRC 826) was inoculated on pre-soaked, sterile maize kernels, in a form of spore suspension. The incubation was set to 25 °C for 5 weeks, and the final FBs concentration in dried culture material was harvested in different production batches. Details on fungal culture preparation were published earlier [72 (link)]. The final FB₁ concentrations were 2000–4000 mg/kg in the air-dried culture material harvested in different batches. The FB₂ concentration of the inoculum materials was ca. 30% of the FB₁ content and the FB₃ concentration was ca. 10–15% of the FB₁ content. The fungal culture was mixed into the ration of the experimental animals so as to provide a daily FBs (FB₁ + FB₂ + FB₃) feed concentration of 15 and 30 mg/kg. The diet fed to the control group did not contain detectable amounts of FBs, whereas the experimental diets were mixed with fungal culture to provide 15 and 30 mg FBs/kg diet. In the diets, the absence of FBs co-occurrence with deoxynivalenol (DON), zearalenone (ZEN), and T-2 toxin was also confirmed, in which the analyzed diets did not contain detectable concentrations (below the limit of detection; 0.053, 0.005, and 0.011 mg/kg for DON, ZEN, and T-2 toxin, respectively). The content of FBs was determined by the LC-MS-2020 mass spectrometer (Shimadzu, Kyoto, Japan) [73 (link)].