Detection of maple toxins in mare's milk.

Summary

# Editorial Summary: Detection of Maple Toxins in Mare's Milk Sapindaceae family plants—notably sycamore maple—contain hypoglycin A and methylenecyclopropylglycine, which cause atypical myopathy in horses and serious neurological illness in humans; whilst vertical transmission of these toxins from dam to foal had been anecdotally reported, no previous chemical analysis of affected mare's milk existed. Johannes and colleagues analysed milk samples from a mare whose foal developed clinical signs consistent with toxin exposure, providing the first analytical confirmation that these compounds can be concentrated and transferred through lactation. The detection of maple toxins in the milk strengthens the biological plausibility of maternal transmission as a disease mechanism and suggests that foals nursing from mares grazing contaminated pasture may be at particular risk during seasonal exposure periods. For stud managers and veterinarians, this finding has direct implications for risk assessment and potentially for management decisions during autumn and winter months when maple seeds and seedlings are most abundant; understanding that toxins can be milk-borne reinforces the importance of preventing mare access to Sapindaceae species during the grazing season, particularly when mares are lactating.

Read the full abstract on PubMed

Key Findings

• •Detection of maple toxins (hypoglycin A and methylenecyclopropylglycine) in mare's milk demonstrates vertical transmission pathway to foals
• •This is the first case where mare's milk was available for analysis of toxin transmission in a similar clinical scenario

Conditions Studied

Tags