Toxicity studies of fungal isolates from sorghum straw in rats, mice and calves
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Date
2006-11-03
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KARNATAKA VETERINARY, ANIMAL AND FISHERIES SCIENCES UNIVERSITY, BIDAR
Abstract
Millions of tones of forage consumed by animals is
contaminated with fungal species invading forage plants prior to
harvest or during storage as hay, straw or silage (Gremmels, 2005).
The species of fungi affecting the forage are of two groups,
namely: field fungi and storage fungi (storage molds). Field fungi are
those, which invade the crop when it is still in the field, and require
20-21 percent moisture. These include species of Fusarium, Alternaria,
Clodosporium, Diplodia, Gibberella and Helminthosporium.
The storage molds are those that invade the fodder during
storage and need less moisture (13-18%) than field fungi. These
include species of Aspergillus and Penicillium (Elizabeth, 2005). These
fungi produce mycotoxins, when favorable conditions allow the fungi
to grow on crops in the field, at harvest, in storage or during the
processing of feed (Palmgren and Lee, 1986).
Mycotoxins are the fungal secondary metabolites formed by
consecutive series of enzyme-catalysed reactions from a few
biochemically simple intermediates (Bohra and Purohit, 2003). These
mycotoxins are present in foods as natural pollutants, thereby
causing acute and chronic toxicities in both human and animals
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