Mycotoxins can cause harm to poultry, effecting poultry performance. An analysis was carried out to evaluate the effects of bile acids on minimising the effects of mycotoxins in poultry diets.
Different mycotoxins can harm different tissue-targeted organs, see image below. Mycotoxins can cause atrophy of immune organs such as bursa of fabricius, thymus and spleen, and further induce immunosuppression. Mycotoxins will cause frequent diarrhoea, intestinal diseases lasting for a long period, feed intake decrease and weight loss.
Mycotoxins are extremely corrosive causing serious damage to the digestive tracts. Mycotoxins can lead to oral ulcers, inflammation of the hernia sac with the pseudo-membrane at its late stage, ulcerative and proliferative glandular gastritis, ulcer formation at the junction of the glandular stomach and the stomach muscle, and the easily-peeling of cerebral membrane. Consequently, mycotoxins affect the body’s digestion and absorption of nutrients, and reduce the feed utilisation rate and conversion rate.
Mycotoxin poisoning can lead to multifocal hepatocyte necrosis in the liver. The gallbladder mucosa will be inflamed due to hyperplasia and necrosis of the bile duct, which further cause the gallbladder to become brittle. Mycotoxins will damage the kidneys, cause renal tubular degeneration and obstruction, resulting in urate deposition and then the occurrence of gout with unknown leg diseases. Mycotoxins can damage the blood vessel wall and cause a rise in blood pressure, increasing the burden on the heart, and can cause frequent ascites. Mycotoxins can decrease egg production rate, eggshell quality, fertilisation rate and hatching rate with more embryonic death occurring during hatching.
The harm caused by mycotoxins can induce liver diseases as they block glucose metabolism, reduce energy utilisation, block protein and lipid metabolism, and decrease production performance. This can lead to vitamin metabolism disorders and hormone synthesis disorders.
In addition, mycotoxins can lead to bile acid synthesis excretions disorder, detoxification dysfunctions, free radical metabolism and immune disorders (retinal endothelium phagocytic system), oxidative stress and inflammatory response. Mycotoxins can also block coagulation function.
Mycotoxins can be treated with the following methods:
Protecting the health of the liver ensures the detoxification function of the liver. Some ways of doing this are:
Through the liver and intestine circulation, bile acids promote the synthesis of the liver to secrete more new bile acids, causing many drug residues, heavy metals and other harmful substances to be discharged from the liver with bile secretion, to protect the liver. Bile acids combine with endotoxin (LPS), inactivate endotoxin, and reduce oxidative stress and inflammatory response, thereby protecting the liver from endotoxin damage.
DON (vomiting toxin) and FB (fumantine) can cause the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines (such as IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6 and TNFα). By inhibiting the expression of pro-inflammatory factors, bile acids can promote the secretion and expression of anti-inflammatory factors (II-11β and TGFβ, TGFβ1, TGFβ2), preventing inflammatory reactions and protecting the liver. As a regulating factor, bile acids activate the bile acids sensitive nuclear receptor (FXR), which has anti-amidation characteristics to plays an anti-cholestasis, anti-liver fibrosis and anti-inflammatory role in protecting the liver.
Deoxycholic acid and ursodeoxycholic acid in bile acids can promote the secretion of a large amount of thin bile from hepatocytes, improve the solubility of cholesterol, smooth the biliary tract, eliminate bile stasis, and play a role in protecting the liver and gallbladder. Bile acids can also improve the antioxidant capacity of animal organisms, improve the activity of SOD, GSH-Px and GR, remove excess oxygen free radicals from fat oxidation, endotoxin and mycotoxins to the animal body, and improve the body’s antioxidant and anti-stress ability.
From the aspect of improving the performance of poultry production, it is conventionally recommended to add Runeon (bile acids) at the dosage of 200 g/ton feed. From solving the toxicities of mycotoxin contaminations, it is recommended to add 30% bile acids at the dosage of 500~1000 g/ton feed together with the mycotoxin binder.