Detection of maple toxins in mare’s milk.
Abstract: Plants from the Sapindaceae family that are consumed by horses (maple) and humans (ackee and litchi) are known to contain the toxins hypoglycin A and methylenecyclopropylglycine which cause seasonally occurring myopathy in horses and entero-encephalopathic sickness in humans. Vertical transmission of these toxins from a mare to her foal has been described once. However the mare's milk was not available for analysis in this case. We investigated mare's milk in a similar case. Objective: We hypothesized that hypoglycin A and methylenecyclopropylglycine, like other amino acids' are secreted into the milk. Methods: Mare with atypical myopathy. Methods: A sample of the mare's milk and 6 commercial horse milk samples were extracted with a methanolic standard solution and analyzed for hypoglycin A, methylenecyclopropylglycine, and metabolites using tandem mass spectrometry after column chromatographic separation. Results: There were hypoglycin A (0.4 μg/L) and the associated metabolites methylenecyclopropylacetyl glycine and carnitine (18.5 and 24.6 μg/L) plus increased concentrations of several acylcarnitines in the milk. The milk also contained methylenecyclopropylformyl glycine and carnitine (0.8 and 60 μg/L). The latter substances were also detected in 1 of 6 commercial horse milk samples. Conclusions: Transmission of the maple toxins can occur through mare's milk. Vertical transmission of Sapindacea toxins might also have importance for human medicine, for example, after consumption of ackee or litchi.
© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. on behalf of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.
Publication Date: 2020-12-18 PubMed ID: 33336854PubMed Central: PMC7848382DOI: 10.1111/jvim.16004Google Scholar: Lookup
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- Journal Article
Summary
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The research discusses the possibility of toxins found in maple leaves being present in a mare’s milk and potentially passing onto the foal or humans who consume products from these mares.
Objective and Hypotheses
- The study set out to investigate the presence of specific toxins, known as hypoglycin A and methylenecyclopropylglycine, in mare’s milk. These toxins are naturally occurring in plants from the Sapindaceae family, which include maple, ackee, and litchi plants.
- The researchers hypothesized that these toxins, similar to other amino acids, might find their way into the mare’s milk.
- They were particularly interested in this research because of a previous case where a mare’s foal exhibited myopathy, a disease associated with these toxins, suggesting possible vertical transmission, but the milk wasn’t available for analysis.
Methods
- The team collected milk samples from a mare suffering from atypical myopathy and six other commercial horse milk samples.
- The samples were extracted with a methanolic standard solution. The extraction process is a chemical method used to isolate compounds (in this case, the specific toxins) from a solution.
- The extracts were then analyzed using tandem mass spectrometry, a sophisticated technique used to identify and quantify specific chemical compounds in a sample.
Results
- In the milk of the mare with myopathy, they found hypoglycin A and methylenecyclopropylglycine, along with their associated metabolites (end products of metabolism).
- In addition, they found increased concentrations of several acylcarnitines. Acylcarnitines are the derivatives of carnitine, an amino acid, and their increased levels might suggest abnormal metabolism.
- Some of these substances were also detected in one of the six commercial horse milk samples tested.
Conclusions
- The findings confirm the assumption that toxins from the Sapindaceae family plants can enter the milk of mares that consume these plants.
- This means that there exists a potential risk for vertical transmission of these toxins to foals or humans consuming mare’s milk products.
- The authors suggest that this finding could be significant for human medicine, particularly concerning foods from the Sapindaceae family, like ackee or litchi, often consumed directly by humans.
Cite This Article
APA
Sander J, Terhardt M, Janzen N.
(2020).
Detection of maple toxins in mare’s milk.
J Vet Intern Med, 35(1), 606-609.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jvim.16004 Publication
Researcher Affiliations
- Screening-Labor Hannover, Ronnenberg, Germany.
- Department of Hygiene, Hanover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
- Screening-Labor Hannover, Ronnenberg, Germany.
- Screening-Labor Hannover, Ronnenberg, Germany.
- Department of Clinical Chemistry, Hanover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
MeSH Terms
- Acer
- Animals
- Female
- Horse Diseases
- Horses
- Milk
- Muscular Diseases / veterinary
- Tandem Mass Spectrometry / veterinary
Conflict of Interest Statement
Authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
This article includes 14 references
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Citations
This article has been cited 5 times.- Engel AM, El-Khatib AH, Klevenhusen F, Weiss M, Aboling S, Sachse B, Schäfer B, Weigel S, Pieper R, Fischer-Tenhagen C. Detection of Hypoglycin A and MCPrG Metabolites in the Milk and Urine of Pasture Dairy Cows after Intake of Sycamore Seedlings. J Agric Food Chem 2023 Jul 19;71(28):10751-10760.
- El-Khatib AH, Lamp J, Weigel S. A sensitive LC-MS/MS method for the quantification of the plant toxins hypoglycin A and methylenecyclopropylglycine and their metabolites in cow's milk and urine and application to farm milk samples from Germany. Anal Bioanal Chem 2023 Apr;415(10):1933-1942.
- El-Khatib AH, Engel AM, Weigel S. Co-Occurrence of Hypoglycin A and Hypoglycin B in Sycamore and Box Elder Maple Proved by LC-MS/MS and LC-HR-MS. Toxins (Basel) 2022 Sep 1;14(9).
- Sander J, Terhardt M, Janzen N. Severe Inhibition of Long-Chain Acyl-CoA Enoylhydratase (EC 4.2.1.74) in a Newborn Foal Suffering From Atypical Myopathy. Front Vet Sci 2021;8:765623.
- Bochnia M, Ziegler J, Glatter M, Zeyner A. Hypoglycin A in Cow's Milk-A Pilot Study. Toxins (Basel) 2021 May 26;13(6).
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