Cytotoxic effects induced by patulin, sterigmatocystin and beauvericin on CHO-K1 cells.

Mycotoxins are produced by different genera of fungi; mainly Aspergillus, Penicillium and Fusarium. The natural co-occurrence of beauvericin (BEA), patulin (PAT) and sterigmatocystin (STE) has been proved in feed and food commodities. This study investigates the cytotoxicity of individual and combined mycotoxins BEA, PAT and STE. The cytotoxicity on immortalized ovarian cells (CHO-K1) was evaluated using the MTT assay. After 24, 48 and 72 h, the IC50 values were 2.9 μM for PAT and ranged from 10.7 to 2.2 μM and from 25.0 to 12.5 μM for BEA and STE, respectively. Cytotoxic interactions were assayed by the isobologram method, which provides a combination index (CI) value as a quantitative mea…