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0658 - The quest for bacteria capable of detoxifying deoxynivalenol, a worldwide prevalent mycotoxin in cereal crops

Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a mycotoxin produced as secondary metabolite by plant pathogenic fungi, which through contamination in food and feed may affect the health of humans and animals. Acute exposure can cause vomiting, nausea and diarrhea. Effects of chronic low-dose exposure are decreased weight gain, anorexia, decreased nutritional efficiency and altered immune function. To avoid these adverse effects and to minimize the economic losses as much as possible, prevention and intervention approaches are highly supported in agriculture. However, these approaches often fail in completely eliminating the risk. Therefore, remediation strategies are needed to detoxify these mycotoxins. The use of bacteria able to convert DON into non-toxic molecules is a promising and innovative strategy to rescue contaminated batches. In present work, bacteria were screened from natural environments to test their DON-detoxification capacity. Two enrichment cultures were obtained able to detoxify DON originating from soil from a monoculture maize field and activated sludge from a wastewater treatment plant. The metabolites have been characterized as the epimer of DON and the epimer of de-epoxy-DON, both conveying no residual toxicity for the aquatic bio-indicator plant Lemna minor. Illumina 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed that Nocardioides sp. reached ca. 17% of the total microbial community after two weeks in both enrichment cultures, while being under the detection limit in the start culture, suggesting members of this genus might have been involved in the DON degradation. Efforts are ongoing in isolating these strains from the enrichment cultures.