Occurrence and clinical manifestations of rubratoxins A and B and cyclopiazonic acid

Abstract

In 1953, Sippel et al. [27] described two disease outbreaks involving approximately 1000 swine (fall of 1952) and 533 swine (fall of 1953) that resulted from ingestion of moldy corn. In a subsequent study, Burnside et al. [1] described the experimental production of the disease using pure cultures of molds isolated from contaminated corn. They cultured 13 different isolates of which nine were representative of the species Aspergillus flavus Link, three were representative of the species Fusarium moniliforme, and one was identified as Penicillium rubrum. Feeding of pure cultures of the molds grown on corn to swine produced positive results only by two isolates. One culture that proved toxic was A. flavus (toxic to 4 of 4 pigs). The other culture that proved to be the most toxic was the P. rubrum isolate. P. rubrum has been shown to be toxigenic by other investigators. Forgacs et al. [8] described a hemorrhagic disease of poultry traced to ingestion of moldy feed that was contaminated with P. rubrum and the closely related species, P. purpurogenum. When these fungi were grown on good corn, it became toxic to chicks and reproduced the hemorrhagic disease seen in the field case.