Researchers Develop Natural Alternative To Antibiotics In Animal Feed

French and Spanish researchers develop a natural alternative to antibiotics in animal feed

Firstscience.com
- 23 Feb 2010
By EUREKA




EUREKA project E! 3025 MONALISA has developed a new, completely natural alternative to using antibiotics in animal feed. Formerly used as growth promoters and to prevent the damaging effects of the fungal toxins which are often present in feed, antibiotics have been prohibited for use in animal feed in the EU since 2006 – creating a need for a new, effective antimycotoxic agent. The already-known capacity of clay minerals to adsorb these mycotoxins has been increased ten times over in this project by the incorporation of molecules of extracts from algae (seaweed) onto the clay. The resulting activated clay is added to animal feed, where it is highly efficient at adsorbing the mycotoxin molecules.

Mycotoxins – which have, over the years, become one of the major concerns of animal feed producers - are the chemical products of fungal moulds which are often present in cereal grains and forage crops. They are especially prevalent in warm and humid regions like Asia and South America, where the climate conditions favour fungal growth. Mycotoxins cause a range of problems to farm animals, including reducing their feed intake and therefore reducing their growth. Consuming mycotoxins can also make animals more susceptible to disease and lead to damaged liver and kidneys. Human health is affected by consumption of animal products like meat, milk and eggs which are contaminated with mycotoxins.

For many years, a range of antibiotics have been applied in low doses to animal feed, to control the production of mycotoxins and to act as growth promoters. But as part of its policy to reduce the threat of developing microbial resistance to antibiotics, the use of antibiotics in animal feed was banned in the EU from 1 January 2006. This policy meant that there was an urgent need for some other way to control the mycotoxins in animal feed.

Multiple applications

French company Olmix was aware that some naturally-occurring clay minerals, particularly montmorillonite, were able to adsorb organic molecules including these toxic substances onto their surface. The clays are formed of layers of about one nanometre. Within the MONALISA project, French company Olmix employed the process known as intercalation, to include molecules of seaweed extracts between the clay layers; making the new product Amadeite®. This process separates the layers (delamination) and increases the interlayer space; and as a result the clay is able to adsorb up to ten times the amount of mycotoxins compared to pure clay. "Our idea," says Dr Anca Laza-Knoerr, "was to introduce a natural product into the clay, rather than the synthetic polymers that had already been used to make activated clays."

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