The toxic effects and potential mechanisms of deoxynivalenol on the structural integrity of fish gill: Oxidative damage, apoptosis and tight junctions disruption

Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a common mycotoxin existed in animal feed, and lead to significant economic loss due to its negative impacts on animal growth performance and animal health. The gill is a primary mucosal immune organ in teleosts, and the structural integrity of the gill is closely relevant with fish healthy growth. Hence, this study assessed the influences of DON on the gill structural integrity of juvenile grass carp, Ctenopharyngodan idella (initial average weight 12.17 +/- 0.01 g), when offered with six different diets which contained various content of DON (27, 318, 636, 922, 1243 and 1515 mu g/kg diet) for 60 days. Our research firstly systematically elaborated that DON caused histopathological lesions, oxidative injury, reduction of antioxidant ability, apoptosis as well as damages of tight junctions in fish gills. Comparing these data to the control, we found that DON at dose of more than 318 mu g/kg diet led to oxidative injury, apoptosis and disruption of tight junctions in fish gill, which were likely to be relevant with Nrf2, JNK and MLCK signalling pathways, respectively. It was worth noting that DON was not found to affect the gene expressions of Keap1b (rather than Keap1a), claudin-b, claudin-3c and claudin-15b (not claudin-15a) in fish gills. Furthermore, based on MDA and T-AOC activities in the gill, the maximum permissible levels of DON were evaluated to be 375.60 as well as 412.91 mu g/kg diet in grass carp, respectively.