Elimination and excretion of a single dose of the mycotoxin fumonisin B-2 in a nonhuman primate

The mycotoxin fumonisin B-2 (FB2), which can be present at significant leve ls in maize infected with the fungus Fusarium moniliforme, was dosed both i v and by gavage to vervel monkeys. It was rapidly eliminated from the plasm a of vervet monkeys dosed iv with 2 mg FB2/kg body mass. The concentration of FB2 in plasma after the iv dose was characterized by an initial distribu tional phase and a subsequent elimination phase with a mean half-life of 18 min. When two monkeys were dosed by gavage with a single bolus (7.5 mg/kg body mass), only one showed detectable trace levels of FB2 in plasma (25-40 ng/ml over the 3-5 hr period after dosing). This indicates that, like FB1, FB2 has a limited bioavailability. Urinary excretion of FB2 was extremely low, even after iv dosing. In total, a mean of 4.1% of the iv dose and 0.2% of the gavage dose was recovered in urine over a 7-day period. The predomi nant route of excretion was via the faeces, mainly as the unmetabolized tox in or as a partially hydrolysed analogue, with the latter accounting for be tween 6% and 47% of the dose. Limited amounts (maximum of 1.1%) of the full y hydrolysed aminopolyol backbone of FB2 were recovered in faeces. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.