Toxico-pathological effects of in ovo inoculation of ochratoxin A (OTA) in chick embryos and subsequently in hatched chicks.

This study was designed to investigate the toxico-pathological effects of in ovo inoculation of ochratoxin A (OTA) in chicken embryos and subsequently in the hatching chicks. Nine hundred fertile white leghorn (WL) layer breeder eggs were divided into eight groups (A-H). Group A was maintained as untreated control, whereas group B was kept as sham control (10 µL of 0.1 M NaHCO(3) solution). Before incubation, groups C, D, E, F, G, and H were injected with 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.10, 0.50, and 1.00 µg OTA/egg, respectively. At 53 hrs of incubation, crown to rump length, optic cups, and eye lens diameters were significantly (p ≤ .05) lower, whereas neural tube closure defects were higher in the OTA-treated embryos. Teratogenic defects (studied at day 9 of incubation) and embryonic mortalities were higher in the groups administered high doses of OTA. A significant increase was noted in the serum concentration of ALT, urea, and creatinine, along with higher weights of liver and kidney, in chicks hatched from OTA-contaminated eggs. These findings suggested that there are teratogenic and substantive toxicological risks in the developing chicken embryos and hatched chicks that could be exposed to OTA in ovo.