Detection of aflatoxins in autopsied materials from a patient infected with Aspergillus flavus

Abstract

We isolated two strains of Aspergillus flavus from a lung lesion and a skin lesion at autopsy from a patient with acute myelogenous leukemia complicated with fungal infection. An attempt was made to detect aflatoxins in culture filtrates of those isolates and the tissue extract of the lung lesion through the techniques of thin-layer chromatography (TLC), densitometry and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Aflatoxins B1, B2 and M1 were demonstrated in all of these materials qualitatively and quantitatively. The concentrations of aflatoxins in the cultures of the isolates and in the lung lesion extract determined by HPLC were aflatoxin B1 : 11.715 μg/ml (lung isolate), 21.383 μg/ml (skin isolate), 0.635 μg/g (lung extract), aflatoxin B2 : 0.341 μg/ml (lung isolate), 0.577 μg/ml (skin isolate), 0.0273 μg/g (lung extract) and aflatoxin M1 : 0.277 μg/ml (lung isolate), 0.491 μg/ml (skin isolate), 0.0525 μg/g (lung extract), respectively. B1, known as the most toxic among the aflatoxin group, showed the highest concentration through these experiments. This case may be considered as the first to detect aflatoxins in autopsied materials associated with A. flavus infection.