Mitochondrial activity of semen cells as marker for cereulide toxin

Cereulide is a small toxin produced by members of the Bacillus cereus group rapidly evoking emesis inpatients. It creates pores in the inner membrane of the cells’ mitochondria, causing activation andsubsequent destruction of mitochondria. Recently, cereulide isoforms with different production levels andtoxicological impact than cereulide were discovered. (Iso)cereulide is usually detected and quantifiedusing chemical methods such as UPLC-MS/MS although these methods do not encompass the biologicalimpact of the produced (iso)cereulide cocktail. Therefore, the boar semen assay was developed to assessthe biological impact of cereulide, resulting in a binary (positive or negative) outcome. In this study, thefunctional bioassay together with detailed real-time measurements of the cell’s oxygen (O2) consumptionto obtain quantitative observations of the semen cell response when exposed to (iso)cereulide. This research was conducted partially in the contect of WP6 of the EU Horizon2020 "Imptox" project.