good morning or well good afternoon uh to all of you um thank you adicio for giving me this opportunity to talk to you and share my experience on mycotoxins how they affect the animals functioning the reproductive digestive and the respiratory system and what can be done about it so we will first highlight a little bit the well the situation globally then the mode of action of the different um mycotoxins and then my well what i am a vet i will highlight the veterinary aspects of mycotoxins in more species but of course my expertise is poultry and so i have a small video to show you where you can find the lesions in poetry then diagnosis is very important and not easy for mycotoxins and then what can you do about it so if we look globally today and abiso contributes to examine and and make um take samples from different parts of the world to see what is the situation what we see is that a lot of our animal feeds are contaminated with mycotoxins there are aflatoxins xeralion uh feminisings dom okra toxin and very often they come together if you find one mycotoxin usually you have more of them that is the rule when we look at those samples and then what we also or what is not always clear is that what is the effect of the subclinical levels of mycotoxins as we say usually it is multi-contamination and different mycotoxins all in different levels and they also have a synergistic effect so one plus one is three in case of microtoxins most of the samples that we find can even comply with the european regulations or recommendations on levels of mycotoxin and what is the maximum tolerable concentration in feeds and we have regulations on that but we also know that even if they do not reach that level there is still an impact on performance and health of the animals so we are talking here of a not so easy to diagnose problem and a problem that is mostly underestimated because we have we measure mycotoxins very often but we also have metabolites from the mycotoxins that also have an effect or modified microtoxins and recently research has also shown shown that um there are many emerging mycotoxins where we still have to examine the effects like the any athens bouvericine all these things are still to be examined so here we have a few overviews or or examples of samples that have been examined all over the world and we have some figures from cereals and corn in poland spain but also us france uk brazil and so russia and so this is really a global concern and there's not one country that can say we do not have also in belgium on our our wheat that we harvest here we also sometimes have microtoxins and so as we said um it is a global threat and what we fear is that with changing climate conditions this is not going to reduce but it's probably going to enhance the occurrence of mycotoxins so we will see that um like we see with insects also and intermediate hosts of some of our parasites is that they are moving up with global warming so micro toxins today for our animals production animals is mainly what we are talking about today um is definitely a major problem right but we not always see a real acute disease like acute mortality or so the effect is more insidious so we have clinical or sub we have clinical disease but mostly we see subclinical disease and that is why we need more performing diagnostics to be able to also detect this so even if there is only low or moderate levels of toxins they can still have an effect on metabolic physiologic immunologic functions of the animals and so it will affect health and performance the other thing to be aware of is that there is a risk of human contamination depending on which products we are dealing with say from the animals but we know like aflatoxin can pass in the milk of the cows we also know that there is proof of ocular toxin aflatoxin in eggs so it can also contaminate the people eating the eggs and in meat although that is more rare but there is a possibility so one of the concerns of mycotoxins is also human food safety so that is why monitoring in feed and food is important not only to determine can we use this raw material and for the quality of the feed but also food safety and then the next step that we are coming to now slowly with biomarkers is how can we measure exposure in the animals because that is what we want to know how much risk is my chicken or big or cattle at by eating this kind of feet so the different mycotoxins in this table i wanted to highlight their mode of action and then also the main target organ i know this is not a complete list but when we talk aflatoxin we know this has um an effect on your dna rna in the liver mainly it also is carcinogenic but the organ that we will in the lesions of acute intoxication the target organ is definitely for aflatoxin will be the liver so for the trichotikines dom t toxin they have more an impact on protein synthesis so they will inhibit this protein synthesis which of course is happening in different parts of the body but the main effects that we will see is intestinal mucosa and it is caustic for the intestinal mucosa also for the skin but as i said i wanted just to highlight the main target organ and to make it easier for in the field to what organs are we going to look at for the different mycotoxins we know that has a big effect on estrogen receptors so of course the reproductive organs here will be the target main target organs as well in the male as in the female then feminism has an in they can inhibit the sphingolipid biosynthesis which is very much implied in the nervous system so that is why with these um mycotoxins we very often see the clinical lesions in the nervous system although they also can affect intestinal tract uh we know that but as i said focus on the main target organ in clinical symptoms and then okra toxin a disturbs the physiology in cellular physiology in many ways but very often the first signs that we see are in the kidneys so that is we will see in the different species okra toxin first clinical signs or lesions we will find in the kidneys so let's come to what my talk is about um what as a vet or what are the the health science that we can see in mycotoxins in the different species and then focus on poultry because that's my expertise so if we look at the different mycotoxins we can see that they do have an impact on general animal health as we can see the circulatory system heart lungs respiratory can be affected also the brain we see some sometimes like even with aflaptoxin we can see paralysis uh sometimes in poultry for example but we have other syndromes with the feminisms in quail or horses for example then the intestinal tract and that of course is very important because everything you put in the feed you put in that is contaminated with the mycotoxins so the first target will be there in the stomach and we will see how it affects really the the basic functioning of that intestinal tract and then the liver of course also a very together with the kidneys a very important organ for detoxification so if your mycotoxin is going to affect liver or kidney it will have a general impact because your normal detoxification processes are um well compromised and then something else that i in my personal experience have come across a couple of times is that mycotoxins can have an effect on your reproduction breeding what we know parent stock and so the mothers of the chickens we of the the chicks we want to produce if they are affected with mycotoxins this can have an effect on their performance but also on hatch ability and on the growth the quality of the dale chicks which is in poultry production one of our main targets that we want to achieve and then in general it affects the immune system that has been proven in many studies but this is something that is sometimes and we talk about subclinical levels how are you going to prove that the reason why you have so many other diseases in fact is because you have mycotoxins that compromise your body defense mechanism so in general if we look at the effects that mycotoxins can have on animal health it's always a mixture of all these three parts and you have the mycotoxin so of course this is going to the the dose that you have there the type of mycotoxin the time of exposure which is also a very important factor when we talk about clinical subclinical uh effects of microtoxins and the is it one mycotoxin but as we said very often you have multiple mycotoxins there so that is one aspect that is going to have an effect on what it's going to do to your animal right but also the animal itself of course and depending on the species we know poultry for example they are maybe the less sensitive so what happens sometimes is that feedstuffs that are not going to be used in cattle and pigs because they are more sensitive species they are going to go into poultry feed and of course maybe the level is not going to be high enough to get clinical symptoms but it will still have an effect so species breed different uh blair birds or uh meat production birds but of course uh in pigs also you have the different categories dairy cattle or meat cattle age gender can have an effect if we talk about reproductive systems which will if your males are also affected it will have a general impact on fertility and health status of the birds if they are already well in less good condition because of parasites the oxidizes i don't know what it will also affect and of course functioning of the immune system in every species we have diseases or conditions that can affect your immune response and then the third factor also very important and cannot be neglected is of course the environment where we keep our animals and so good management biosecurity hygiene good conditions in general in the housing of our animals is important and will determine all these three factors together will determine what are you going to see in the fields so this is a slide that i borrowed from junker antonison a professor at the university of ghent and he's done a lot of work on mycotoxins and i think this is very important for all the rest that we are going to develop because this talks slide talks about what are mycotoxin doing in the intestinal tract first of all what we see is that it's going to affect intestinal permeability and we see here the different mycotoxins and all of them have an effect on the permeability which means that once you have mycotoxins in clinical or subclinical levels in your intestinal lumen it's going to affect those type junctions between the intestinal epithelium it's going to make that you get a leaky gut not only the mycotoxins but all other substances that are supposed to stay outside of the birds circulatory system are going to be able to enter the circulation so we have an effect on inflammation we have they induce oxidative stress which of course is something that is not compromising the normal functioning of your gaze and very important and there will be a shift in intestinal microbiota most mycotoxins will have an effect on that and will make for example that the commensal community of bacteria will be compromised and that pathogens or pathogens that are there gets the or take the opportunity to do harm in the intestinal tract so also an effect on local immunity iga production and recovery of your cells and so cell proliferation is something that is needed to if you have an injury to recover and this is compromised in um with many of the mycotoxins so how would it this modulation of the intestinal function happen even at subclinical levels say you will looking at what happens in the former slide and you will see that there is an effect on the physiology immunology and the metabolic actions happening in the intestinal tract and the consequences are that it will affect your performance because there is no normal digestion and absorption of nutrients and because of the damage done by the mycotoxins this increased permeability will also compromise the normal mucosal barrier function to keep out the bad things and to absorb the good things and we will have in general as more susceptibility for any infectious disease so that's why the effect of microtoxins in the gut is so important so let's have a look at the different species what you will see in clinical manifestations of mycotoxins so that means that you already have a high level but you will have in swine but in all species reduced performance and reduced performance also because the feed utilization and efficiency of digestion is compromised we get impaired fertility and you can sometimes see tale necrosis ear necrosis in swine skin lesions same in poultry reduced performance and one of the things we often see is the fatty liver an effect on egg production also on the quality of the eggs and we see sometimes meat spots blood spots due to um micro toxins and in the end and because of a general um effect on performance you will get poor carcass quality and then in horses for example we have this syndrome where you see neurotoxic lesions and even in fish because don't forget this is also important for fishing we will see that there are they have abnormal body conformation and also lesions that resemble a little bit what we see for example with um that you see producer protrusion protrusion of the anus for example something that we can see in fish so aflatoxin's main target organ the liver and you can see here we have a normal colored liver and all these are different levels of aflatoxin that cause fatty generation you also get liver affection in the pigs for example okra toxin a typical target the kidney and you can see big nephropathy so necrosis and and uh lesions in the kidneys as well in pigs as uh in in broilers where you can see swollen kidneys and then the effects on the reproductive tract of zirala here is what you see in young female pigs and also abortion and also an effect on the reproduction here what we see this is in chickens where you see cystic oviducts this is a sign of and very important and this is a normal testicle of male chicken and here we see with microtoxins atrophy of course this is not going to give you a lot of chicks and then uh nervous um signs in you see this poor horse suffering from equine leuko and cephalon malasi but also in quails we have a nervous system with nervous disorders with this mycotoxin then if we look at dom and t2 and as i said the intestinal tract is very much affected by the caustic effect but also and the lesions that you see on the little pigment and the tail necrosis in this cell no it's not a cell it's a bore sorry i'm not a big specialist but i should be able to see this then ericotta one of the mycotoxins that we know for many years it's or even in some paintings of our famous peterborough where you see in humans skin necrosis but we also see that in this these are calves with skin here you see it in the chicken and here the ear neck roses in pigs and here are the fish effects that they saw in rainbow trouts with dom where you see that the body of this fish is not completely normal a big belly and then the protrusion of these um this anus in fact eh and they also you also see kidney and liver lesions and so this has all been uh described in literature and then what we i would like to come back to what i know best is poultry pathology and here we see and i have a small movie on that gastrointestinal lesions feathering the liver affected sometimes subcapsular hematomas egg quality what you see here is damaged on by um okra toxin and also kidney problem bruisings and the the blood clotting can be affected by mycotoxins and even lameness sometimes so let's uh watch together uh the video that we prepared for you on necropsy sorry so what i want to show you is how we can do necropsy on this layer and we will focus on where you are looking for lesions caused by mycotoxins so these are normal feathers you will see with some mycotoxins like trichotickins don you can have lesions of ab normal formed feathers so this is where you could see abnormalities when the feathers are not normally developed so this is how normal feet and toes look like in some conditions caused by mycotoxin specifically ericotaminus you can see necrosis of the toes so then we'll inspect the head and the mouth cavity where you can see here the huena that are clear it's the top part of the mouth in fact connected with the nose also and also the tongue this is a normal tongue if you have mycotoxin intoxication in acute cases you can see lesions on the mucosa of the mouth here on the huena also the tip of the tongue can be necrotic it turns out black and you see kind of ulcers also on the side of the where the beak ends so we open up the abdominal cavity so this is a young layer and here you see the organs in situ immediately you can see the liver this is a reddish brownish that is a normal liver in cases of intoxication with aflac toxin for example you get fat deposit fatty degeneration of the liver so you will have more orange even yellowish liver color so we remove the intestinal package and what we can see here is a normal aspect of the intestines you don't see any hemorrhages this can be the case in some intoxication with mycotoxins you can see hemorrhages on the intestine big spots of hemorrhage so then we will open up the stomachs and prove ventriculus because there also sometimes you can see lesions so this is the pro ventriculus that we open up and in some cases also because of mycotoxins you can see hemorrhages here in the proventriculus then we open up the gizzard because this is also where we will look for lesions and we remove the contents and then we look for ulcers so this is normal aspect of the gizzard inside so in case of mycotoxins you can find lesions ulcers here but mostly also on this side sometimes you can only see it when you remove the choline layer so underneath but in fact all these ulcers are due to caustic effects of the mycotoxins so this is the inside of the desert the mucosa without the coaling layer and in case of intoxication with mycotoxins you can see ulcers on when you remove the coiling layer also sometimes even with the coolant layer on top of it you can even find that in very small chicks maybe due to breeder intoxication so then we have a look this is a layer where you can see the immature of area it's a young layer and underneath you see the kidneys and this is the normal aspect of kidneys and they are reddish brownish color and you don't see any um in case of mycotoxin intoxication for example with okra toxin you can sometimes find like or very swollen kidneys or signs of urates inside the kidneys so this is a young layer what we see here is an ovarian that is not yet developed but we know that some mycotoxins also affect the reproductive tract as well in the female as in the male where you can get regression of your ovarian and you can also get testicles that are undersized and so a trophy of the testicles and of course this will have an effect on your fertility rate and hatchability so i hope you learned something from the necropsy session and um so what i want to highlight because in input production this is of course very productive very important is the performance of the breeders and they can be affected by microtoxins what we will see is that in bad cases even your feed intake will be lower and of course your feed conversion will go up your efficiency of transforming feed into meat or eggs is is lower so an effect on your production less eggs and even the ones that are produced can have reduced hatch ability the end product of breeder production is quality chicks so microtoxin can have an effect on your shell quality also on the hatching process because if your shell quality is not good during incubation you will have altered moisture loss and also the exchange of gases in bad quality shells is less good so it will have an effect on chick quality and more embryonic mortality and also sometimes we saw some of the the mycotoxins affect really dna and so you can really have deformations egg weight can be lower fertility goes down more mortality as well in the breeders as in their progeny and the chick quality goes down so if you look at egg production and embryonic mortality there is a connection in the sense that these studies are with effects of aflatoxin and ochratoxin but also the other mycotoxins can have an effect on egg quality and embryonic mortality because as we said at the start there is the effect of your mycotoxin in the intestinal tract which will compromise nutrient absorption but also calcium and vitamin d tree absorption which you need for the production of a good quality shell and then in the liver you will have the protein synthesis that is compromised so that will also affect the transport of calcium in your circulation and also other pigments like vitamin a can that can also be affected by the mycotoxins and then in the kidney you have more excretion of calcium which means that there is less available for uh shell good shell production the plasma concentration of calcium and phosphorus is going down more calcium is going to be mobilized from the bones and this will result in thinner eggshells during incubation this has an effect on exchange of moisture and gases which will affect the um condition of the embryo and you will get more embryonic mortality so here in these graphs you can see and the important is to note what i put there in green is that the concentrations were within the essa regulation range but still you can see with different mycotoxin or toxin aflatoxin and it also states when or the exposure of days also with don you have an effect on egg production and consequently also on [Music] embryo mortality so these are the effects that you can see with exposure and as i say important to note is that it's not even in um concentrations that are higher than what is uh determined in the regulation so what you saw in the graphs is a synergistic effect what we usually see with mycotoxin of oculotoxin and aflaptoxin and important to remember is that these mycotoxins can also be transferred to the egg so they have an effect on the cheek of the embryo so the embryo the chick there can be embryo mortality or a chick that is born but with a compromised immune system with lower transfer of antibodies through the yolk with lower weights of the immune organs the bursa fabrici and the thymus and so that makes that your chicks will be more susceptible to infections and you will have early mortality so then diagnosis as i said not always easy if you have subclinical infections with or or um contamination with mycotoxins and then use as i said you see other diseases you see other problems and to relate that to mycotoxin can be a challenge so for example reduced hatch ability before you come to the feed of the the breeders and find microtoxins there sometimes that's a long way to go um because and also and in this case for example what we saw were ulcers in the gizzards of dale chicks and in the end we could prove that there was a problem with the feet of the breeders but of course there are other reasons why you can find ulcers in the stomach can be high temperature in incubation or adenovirus for example so it's important to monitor in the feeds or the foods and for humans for quality of the feed and food safety for people but also for our animals um so already it starts for the monitoring it starts with the problem of the sampling because mycotoxin contamination is not uniform in a batch say you have a boat that arrives with corn from i don't know where um and you want to check for mycotoxins the way you sample is very important because you can have hot spots with um contaminations and if you don't do a good sampling then you will have a problem so that is one aspect and the other one is that if we want to see or are microtoxins implied in problems that i see in the animals then what we want to get in the picture is the exposure to mycotoxin in the animals and therefore or humans and therefore we make use of biomarkers so we will look at bodily fluids blood urine faces feces sometimes meat milk or eggs and then we will see um we will try to find the mycotoxins and also we can look at biomarkers of effects biomarkers that indicate inflammation biomarkers that indicate lower immune response for example important day i'm not a specialist in that but you have different analytical methods depending on what you want to prove or what you want to find and you have very specific qualitative and quantitative analysis and where for example for legal regulations and some of them will like the high-performing liquid chromatography and you can identify single mycotoxins you also have tests the liquid liquid chromatography mass spectrometry where you can have a different or multiple analysis of different mycotoxins and then we have cheaper rapid screening tests in eliza so they can give you a good idea but of course this is not uh very um they are less sensitive so usually you will do a screening and then afterwards a more performing test so depending what you are looking for what type of matrix you are examining you will have a different test and then a brief word on the biomarkers because they are very useful because they will show you really in the animal what is happening there or what are the levels of mycotoxins so there is a lot of work going on in that area some of it is done at the university of ghent where for example they looked at um to see if some mycotoxin binders or detoxifiers what is the effect in the broiler or in the pig and therefore we they saw that for pigs there is a good correlation between the concentration of mycotoxin in the feed and in the animal in the pig for broilers we are still on the way i'm sure we will soon find better biomarkers but so it's important when you work with these biomarkers or look at results that you take into account is this the best marker in this for this mycotoxin for this animal eh because you can look for the mycotoxin maybe for metabolites of mycotoxins what is the best matrix is it blood plasma is it urine is it feces depends on the species on the mycotoxin also the timing is ex important so when are you taking this sample when you expect the exposure has taken place because that of course will influence the content the concentration of mycotoxin or maybe metabolites and then the toxicol kinetics say for each mycotoxin is different so that is also something to take into account when you choose biomarkers and so we have good proof um there we have some um trials done uh in broilers for aflatoxin dom utta and for pigs with don and zerala neon that gave us some good results and so here in this study from tommy van lindbergen and he saw a good correlation between the feed and the plasma of dom um higher level of done in the feeds a higher level of uh in the plasma and that was correlated to necrosis in the piglets afterwards in the broilers the test that uh the trials that this is from a child that is is um well probably not yet published but uh in any case they didn't see a very good relation so we're the search for biomarkers in broiler is ongoing sorry so biomarkers say i would say in broilers the golden standard remains feed analysis and then control and prevention and we also have to as we saw what mycotoxins can do we can do some symptomatic treatment try to support recovery intestinal health is very important there anti-inflammatory antioxidant and support liver and kidney function and help detoxification that's because that is what the mycotoxins are doing damage and then important in your mycotoxin control is to have an integrated approach um it starts at the harvesting in the fields already when plants grow and you have to go on with your surveillance until it reaches the animal and so good agricultural practice and good manufacturing practice are necessary for that and the right processing techniques and then make sure there are good feed additives that can bind mycotoxins or can modify a mycotoxins but you always have to be aware about efficacy and safety because if you overdose you might have a problem it can also for example capture vitamins and other needed substances and no there is no mycotoxin detoxifier that is universal for all mycotoxins so the substances that we use and they will suppress or reduce absorption of the mycotoxin they will also help excretion it so that the exposure time is reduced and they can also have an effect on the mode of action of the mycotoxin so make sure that you be aware that if you use too much or the wrong binders that you can have a problem with minerals and nutrients that are absorbed so that's the end of my presentation my take home message for you is that you must be aware of mycotoxins it's a global concern and it's uh from many evidence sampling we know that um there are a lot of mycotoxins there and that sometimes they are subclinical but they do have an effect um clinical symptoms are maybe rare but if you have them then you really have the tip of the iceberg okay but most commonly we see subclinical effects so it affects intestinal integrity immune response so more other diseases so important to do a good monitoring on the feed and the food to assure quality of the feed you give to the animals and to assure food safety for the human consumer and in the future i think we will find better methods to find or or give evidence of the mycotoxins in the animals with biomarkers so for the control we have to rely on an integrated approach from the field to our table and we have to avoid of course contamination before the feeds are ingested by our animals and if we have problems we need to focus on the target organs to make sure that we protect them so that our animals can be healthy and performing well sorry so with that i want to thank you for your attention and i'm ready to answer any questions if you want thank you very very much gildam it was very interesting and i especially enjoy the movie however i have to say let's see the movie because of internet connection and i hope you can follow up this issue and send the separate link to them and all participants who could not enjoy the video of heal the presentation on organs you please contact us and we will make sure that you will get the link we have several questions hindered however only 10 minutes left for for the question session and the first question is about the climate change and uh the question is that climate change will impact the mycotoxin prevalence as you said but what about the impact of regulation like fsa on fungicides and pesticides because i would like to reduce them i not sure i understand the question the fungicide is is in the fields you mean yes uh i i know a little bit this topic and efsa is trying to reduce the use of pesticides and fungicides that means that the issue of mycotoxins will be higher even more yes and at the same time efsa or other governments in other countries they try also to reduce acceptable levels in feed it doesn't how how it could be possible to make it well i think um yeah there is a conflict there definitely i think with climate change we will probably have well a shift of where we have more mycotoxins and we also see that climate conditions are more extreme which is not going to help for our mycotoxins and we have heavy rains where humidity is high maybe higher temperature well maybe some places it will also get colder so they will have less mycotoxins but anyway i think in general we can expect more mycotoxin contamination if then on the other side they are going to limit uh the use of fungicides and it goes together probably with like we want to reduce um antibiotics in in for bacteria so then we will have to look for alternatives uh and well as i said integrated approach so you will need to take measures in the fields and to make sure that your crop is protected if you can from the fung fungus but then even more we will have to focus on making sure that the feeds that we make the products that we use are mycotoxin-free or at least protected for microtoxins so yes this is definitely an issue okay i'm not european regulator but i would and the same with antibiotics say i think we can look for alternatives and innovation is going to help us but the problem will be there so it will need to be solved so and do you think that one of the most prom promised solution promising solution will be use of uh products uh mycotoxin well i do think and i i well as far as i know from the poultry industry um there is more use of mycotoxin binders and detoxifiers than we sometimes think because they know that in raw materials like belgium is a small country if one feed mill has to protect all of them have to protect because they are mostly using same raw materials so i do think there will be an increase and also research is going on first of all monitoring should be more tight i think and then the use of these um toxin binders or detoxifiers and also on the other hand things to enhance or prevent the damage done by microtoxins in the gut will take well will increase the use i think thank you good probably have the last questions uh yeah and the question is uh is the the diagnosis of micro toxic causes easy in the field condition or the typical organ damage can be caused also by other factors like other than mycotoxins for example fatty liver is it one hundred percent sure after toxic causes so no no that makes our job as a bit nice and interesting there are many reasons why that's what i was saying and mycotoxins before you get to the real diagnosis sometimes it takes a lot of time but you should never eliminate it from your differential diagnosis and i think it's very present but of course liver damage can be done by viruses adenovirus big liver big spleen there are many other feed is one of the in layers your feed management is also going to have a big impact on the occurrence of fatty liver but never forget that the fatty liver can always be and definitely if you also have um problems with with blood clotting a lot of hemorrhages then you should think in the direction of mycotoxins but until now since we don't have the perfect biomarkers yet sometimes very difficult to prove and then yeah the best proof sometimes is to put your product to avoid the mycotoxin and then you can see an improvement and that is something for example that we saw in breeder farms where you see okay once we start putting the product the exposure is done three weeks later we see hatch ability going up because that is when you will see the results of what you put in the feed in your breeders eh once the first chick starts hatching yeah it's like diagnosis like diagnosis on therapeutically as we said it's mycotoxins are very prevalent so don't exclude it from your differential diagnosis so but there is no any ways to go to farm and say that we have mycotoxins looking at the animals well if you have clinical signs yes if you see those black tongues if you see um sometimes yeah the lesions in the intestines can be quite typical for that all that combined can can give you and then if you the proof in chickens will be okay we examine the feeds and then maybe we find it see yeah features number one yesterday the clinical signs of some of these are quite typical i i think we showed a few that were quite typical but in the fields very often the the lesions are not so um heavy yeah yeah and levels are low so we don't have yeah but even low levels but multi mycotoxin infections synergies between them makes that the impact of your microtoxin can be very important okay thank you yeah we have uh quite a number of questions uh but uh not much time to answer only one maybe uh this is uh one about ziraleno they say that they are elenor is less toxic to poultry but what kind of levels or how high should be levels of concern for poultry breeders do you have any recommendation well i think we always look at the european regulations and i don't have it in my head what exactly is for uh but even as i showed in my presentation when levels it was not zeraliun it was ocratoxin or aflatoxin but it's the same um the the levels that you find even if they are below efsa regulation you can never be sure right because you also don't know which other mycotoxin is involved um and as i also mentioned and the risk of finding contaminated raw materials in poultry is maybe a bit higher because they are considered less sensitive than cattle and pigs and so sometimes these raw materials will end up in poultry feet contaminated so you always have to be aware but i can come back to you with the the levels but i don't have that in my small brain yeah thank you uh one quick question where can i test biomarkers um there are a couple of um yeah tests available also from competitors um i know at the university of ghent they've developed that group has developed their tests but as i said i think we still and it is not going to be so easy and to say okay we will just test the urine of the pig and we will find all the no i don't think it's that easy yeah first of all matrix is important kind of mycotoxin timing of exposure maybe you don't find anything with your biomarker and but the exposure was well too long before it's already excreted or and that is different that is i think olga can tell us more about the toxic kinetics of the different mycotoxins um that that is something to take into account so there's already universal not yet but i think right it will come it will come somebody there yeah yeah indeed the toxico kinetics is very different for each mycotoxin but also in each species and it's quite important to to be correct in the time of blood sampling for instance so urine sampling because it can depend and regarding the laboratories i think this is the biggest concern because i think only a couple of laboratories in europe can test it uh i know university of ghent for instance and uh inra in toulouse and uh frankly saying no other laboratory is coming to my mind maybe espan in bari in italy but it's not very available and it's a university laboratory and it's not just that you go to any and say i want to test biomarkers so it's not that easy no it requires of course validation of specific methods but also of use of of standards which are hardly available but work in progress i would say so i will i'm confident that in a couple of years maybe we will have better ways to and that's important because i'm also very convinced that the problems with mycotoxins are under diagnosed there's more problems around than we know thank you very much hilda for your session for answers it was very interesting we have more questions but we follow up those questions unanswered during our talk uh later on after the presentation we contact participants uh directly with the answers very much all for listening it was very nice session a really good one and i am looking forward to have the next one and please don't forget to register for episode four and i would like to say that those who had some issues with the listening or following presentation we will have a replay uh next tuesday certain april at four four o'clock p.m uh this will be normally scheduled for america's but those who would like to see or hear it once again please register for that one as well i wish you a good day good evening and uh hopefully uh to see you soon all the best to you thank you bye thank you very much you