Proteomics evaluation of enniatins acute toxicity in rat liver

Enniatins (ENs) are emerging mycotoxins produced by Fusarium fungi which are cytotoxic also at low concentrations due to its ionophoric properties. The aim of this study was to evaluate the hepatic toxicity of ENs exposure at different concentrations in Wistar rats through a proteomic approach. Animals were intoxicated by oral gavage with medium (EN A 256, ENA1 353, ENB 540, ENB1 296 μg/mL) and high concentrations (ENA 513, ENA1 706, ENB 1021, ENB1 593 μg/mL) of an ENs mixture and sacrificed after 8 h. Protein extraction was performed using powdered liver. Peptides were analyzed using a liquid chromatography coupled with a quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer. Proteins were filtered by abundance using Mass Professional Profiler software (Agilent Technologies) and 57 were differentially expressed when compared to the control. In terms of abundance, the liver biomarker Carboamoyl-phosphate synthase showed the highest levels in all conditions employed while actin-1 had the lowest. Bioinformatic analysis using DAVID platform reported acetylation, nucleotide phosphate-binding region:NAD and catalytic activity as the most represented terms. Furthermore, metabolism was the most significant and enriched pathway in Reactome overrepresentation. In conclusion, ENs acute exposure caused protein expression changes related to major cellular processes in rats, hinting its involvement in liver disturbance.