Abstract
Zearalenone (ZEN) is a naturally occurring contaminant of animal feed that has been implicated in several mycotoxicoses in farm livestock. Recently some information has become available indicating that ZEN caused cancer or at least increased its prevalence, although the mechanism of action is unknown. Many papers mentioned that exposure to ZEN results in genotoxicity and DNA damage. Therefore, we investigated the chemo-preventive role of 4-(methylthio)-3-butenyl isothiocyanate (MTBITC) extracted from Tunisian Raphanus sativus (radish) on the cytogenetic effect of ZEN in Balb/c mice and in in vitro cultures of mouse lymphocytes isolated from mouse spleen. We determined chromosome aberrations and micronuclei as well as the mitotic index and DNA fragmentation following ZEN treatment alone or in combination with MTBITC. This report is the first to provide evidence of a statistically significant decrease of structural chromosome aberrations and micronuclei associated with an augmentation of the mitotic index and prevention of DNA fragmentation in all mice treated with ZEN-MTBITC and in mouse lymphocyte cultures. The MTBITC alone was safe and succeeded in reducing the toxicity of ZEN by counteracting its deleterious effect, thus protecting against the genotoxicity and clastogenicity from ZEN.