Citrinin

Abstract

WORKING with certain “local fungi in Bombay”, Manohar¹ incorporated into a “therapeutic drag called Notalin” the purified metabolic products of a species of Penicillium (KG) and of Aspergillus (M 82). Notalin, marketed as a yellow powder, crystallizes from alcohol in yellow needles, m.p. 171.5° C., and has proved to be identical with citrinin², for a sample of which we are indebted to Dr. A. B. Oxford. A pure strain was then isolated from “Penicillium KG”, which has now been kindly identified for us by Dr. G. Smith as Penicillium citrinum, Thom. Citrinin was first isolated by Hetherington and Raistrick² from Penicillium citrinum Thom., and later from Penicillium expansum³, Aspergillus terreus⁴ and an Aspergillus species of the candidus group⁵. Citrinin has also been isolated in 1–1.2 percent yield from the dried leaves of the flowering plant, Crotalaria crispata, growing in tropical north Australia⁶.