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Species Comparison of in Vitro Metabolism of Aflatoxin B₁¹

Department of Nutrition and Food Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

The metabolism of [¹⁴C]aflatoxin B₁ by 9000 x g supernatant fraction of livers of duck, rat, mouse, monkey, and humans was compared by incubating the compound and liver fractions in the presence of cofactors and air for 30 min. The incubation medium was extracted with chloroform, and the soluble metabolites were separated on thin-layer plates and quantified; radioactivity remaining in the aqueous phase was determined in order to quantify metabolism to water-soluble derivatives. Duck, monkey, and human livers were most active in total conversion, each metabolizing approximately 80% of available substrate in 30 min. Rat and mouse livers had lower activities, metabolizing 15 to 20%. Duck liver produced mainly (60%) chloroform-insoluble derivatives, but all other species produced larger quantities of chloroform-soluble than insoluble metabolites. Aflatoxin Q₁ was the principal chloroform-soluble metabolite produced by monkey, human, and rat liver, whereas duck liver produced mainly aflatoxicol in that fraction. Aflatoxin P₁ was produced by monkey, human, and mouse liver, but not by duck and rat. The chromatographic region containing M₁ and B_2a contained low levels of radioactivity in all species except human. No consistent pattern of metabolism emerged which could be correlated with species differences in response to aflatoxin B₁ toxicity or carcinogenicity.

¹ Financial support was provided by Grants NIH 5 PO1 ES 00597 and 5 TO1 ES 00056, and Contract NIH NO1 CP 43265. Preliminary accounts of this work were presented at the 1975 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (18).

² Present address: Department of Pathology, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, N. H. 03755.

³ To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Room 56-215, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.

Received 5/26/76. Accepted 3/ 8/77.