Untargeted GC-TOFMS-based cellular metabolism analysis to evaluate ozone degradation effect of deoxynivalenol.

Ozone plays an increasingly important role in food processing for its antimicrobial ability and degradation effects on mycotoxins. The mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) was treated with saturated aqueous ozone for different amounts of time, and by-products were collected for compounds annotation and cytotoxicity evaluation. To investigate the cytotoxicity of ozone degradation by-products, untargeted GC-TOFMS-based metabolomics were utilized. Caco-2 cells were dosed with 0.1 μg/mL DON and saturated aqueous ozone-treated DON (treatment time: 1 min, 3 min, 5 min) for 24 h followed by cytotoxicity tests (cell viability assay, ROS assay, and apoptosis assay), and intracellular metabolic analysis. Cytotoxicity test results revealed that ozone treatment could degrade DON structure; however, its degradation products and cellular toxicity existed under different treatment time of ozone. Metabolomics analysis indicated that ozone-treated DON degradation products weakened DON-induced metabolic disorder, such as purines-related nucleotide metabolism; Krebs cycle-related fuel and energy metabolism; and lipid, alkaloid and amino acid metabolism. By contrast, the catecholamine pathway, which is related to latent inflammation and oxidative stress effects, was unaltered in the ozone-treated DON group, indicating that the potential cytotoxicity still existed. These findings provide a comprehensive safety evaluation for ozone-treated DON in vitro and propose a new strategy for studying the effects of ozone-treated food.