| Resumo: | Considering the potential impact on health and the scarce data available regarding early-life exposure to mycotoxins, earlyMYCO project (early-life exposure to MYCOtoxins and its impact on health) proposed to answer key questions: are pregnant women and infants until six months exposed to mycotoxins? Is this exposure a health threat? Does this early-life exposure influence the intestinal immune system development? Which is the burden derived from the exposure to mycotoxins? The earlyMYCO pilot study enrolled 19 pairs of mother and children, with a loss to follow-up ranging between 11% and 47% for different moments of observation. The mycotoxins’ biomarkers detected were AFB1, OTA, DON and bZEL in urine samples (mother and children), and AFB1, aZEL, FB1, FB2 and FB3 in breast milk samples. Food consumption data revealed that foods consumed more frequently during the week were bread, dairy products, non-alcoholic drinks (tea and coffee), animal products (meat and fish) and pasta. Regarding infants, 22% were fed with infant formula and 78% were exclusively breastfed. Considering the exposure levels, a low risk of mothers’ exposure to the main mycotoxins analyzed is expected, since urine samples did not reveal detectable levels of these compounds; however, infants’ urine samples presented a DON mean value of 14.8 ng/mL (corresponding to 148.0 μg/kg bw/day through reverse dosimetry), which could represent a risk for this population group. Notably, maternal exposure to AFB1 promoted an increase of overall T cell population, while it also resulted in a selective reduction of cytokine-producing innate lymphoid cells group 2 (ILC2) population in intestine of the progeny. These alterations were associated with decreased expression of Reg3b and Reg3g by the intestinal mucosa of progeny. Thus, these results indicate that maternal exposure to mycotoxins impacts the development of offspring intestinal immune system. An in vitro approach using intestinal cell lines Caco-2 and Caco-2/HT29-MTX models exposed to AFB1 during 24h, confirmed the deleterious effects of AFB1 on intestinal membrane integrity and its effect on mucus layer. To assess the impact of AFB1 on early-life microbiota, faeces from litters of AFB1 treated female mice and controls were assessed by metagenomics. Although the overall diversity (Shannon diversity index) of the microbiome wasn’t affected between groups, the microbiome composition varied between AFB1 and control faecal samples (Bray–Curtis dissimilarity index). In particular, some beneficial species were diminished in the litters from AFB1 treated females. Results emphasized the need for assessing the prenatal and lactation exposure to mycotoxins.
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