Abstract: To investigate the effects of deoxynivalenol (DON) exposure on antioxidant property, serum biochemical indexes and small intestinal mucosal morphology in weanling piglets, thirty healthy weanling piglets of “Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire” with similar body weight were selected and randomly divided into 3 groups. Piglets in the control group were fed with basal diet, the low-dose group and the high-dose group were fed with 1 mg·kg^-1 and 2 mg·kg^-1 of DON diets. The trial was conducted for 60 d. At the end of the experiment, blood samples were collected for detecting the anti-oxidation performance, blood biochemical indexes and small intestinal permeability. Meanwhile, five piglets from each group were slaughtered and the small intestine tissues were taken for the observation of pathological changes. The results indicated that, compared with the control group, the activities of serum glutathione peroxidase(GSH-Px), superoxide dimutase(SOD) and catalase(CAT) of DON groups, were decreased significantly (P<0.05), the levels of nitric oxide(NO) and malondialdehyde(MDA) were increased significantly (P<0.05), the levels of alkaline phosphatase(ALP), gamma-glutamy transpeptidase(γ-GGT), creatinine(CREA), alpha-amylase(α-AMY), lipase(LIP) and creatine kinase(CK)were increased significantly (P<0.05), aspartate amino transferase(AST) was decreased significantly(P<0.05). The serum contents of diamine oxidase(DAO) and D-lactic acid(D-LA) were increased significantly with the increasing concentration of DON. The low-dose of DON resulted in a change of small intestinal mucosal morphology. However, high-dose of DON could cause more serious damage to the intestine. These results suggested that DON exposure could change antioxidant reaction and serum biochemical indexes, lead to intestinal mucosal damage and increase intestinal permeability of piglets, indicating that DON could have toxic effects to weanling piglets.

Key words: deoxynivalenol, piglets, antioxidant reaction, biochemical index, intestinal mucosa