RESUMO
Mycoestrogen zearalenone [ZEA] is found in human foods and animal feeds. Its estrogenic potency mainly depends on its biotransformation fate. The hepatic biotransformation of ZEA in rainbow trout was investigated in this study. Various concentrations of ZEA were separately incubated with the hepatic microsomal and post-mitochondrial sub-fractions in the presence of NADPH, and the metabolites were determined by means of HPLC. Moreover, the rate of glucuronidation for ZEA and its reduced metabolites were estimated in the presence of uridine diphosphate glucuronic acid. beta-zearalenol [beta-ZOL] was found to be the major metabolite of ZEA by both sub-cellular fractions. The enzymatic kinetics analyses indicated that the alpha-ZOL and beta-ZOL production by microsomal fraction were 8- and 2-fold higher than those by post-mitochondrial fraction, respectively. High percentages of ZEA and its metabolites are conjugated with glucuronic acid at the lower concentrations. Data suggest that the hepatic biotransformation of ZEA in rainbow trout resulted in its detoxification as the main metabolite tends to be beta-ZOL with weak estrogenic property. Moreover, at certain concentrations, the produced metabolites are entirely conjugated with glucuronic acid, which may consequently cause a prolonged duration of action due to entero-hepatic cycle