Acute and subchronic exposure of cyadox induced metabolic and transcriptomic disturbances in Wistar rats

Cyadox, a potential antimicrobial growth promoter, has been widely studied and prospected to be used as an additive in livestock and poultry feed. Although high cyadox exposure has been reported to cause toxicity, the exact metabolic effects are not fully understood. Our study aim is to evaluate the metabolic effects of cyadox using comprehensive methods including serum clinical chemical test, histopathology analysis, metabolomics, and transcriptomics profile analysis. One single acute dosage over 7-day course and one subchronic 90-day dietary ingestion of cyadox intervention were conducted on the Wistar rats separately. Dose-dependent alterations were shown in the metabolism of the urine, kidney, plasma, and liver by metabolomics analysis. We further investigated gene expressions of the liver administered with high dose of cyadox for 12 weeks. Top sixty-six differentially expressed genes involved in the pathways, including xenobiotic (cyadox) metabolism, lipid metabolism, energy metabolism, nucleic acid metabolic process, inflammatory response, and response to the oxidative stress, which were in concordance with these metabolic alternations. Our study provided a comprehensive information on how cyadox modulates the metabolism and gene expressions, which is vital when considering the safe application of cyadox.