Cereal Chem 45:236 - 241.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Factors in Oats That Could Be Mistaken for Aflatoxin.

O. L. Shotwell, G. M. Shannon, M. L. Goulden, M. S. Milburn, and H. H. Hall. Copyright 1968 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

In an examination of oat samples, initial chemical tests indicated that many of those tested contained fluorescing substances which behaved like aflatoxins B1 and G1 on thin-layer chromatographic plates. When these same samples were assayed in ducklings, symptoms typical of those caused by aflatoxin failed to develop. Several methods of purification, including solvent distribution, chromatography on silica gel, and lead acetate precipitation, failed to remove interfering substances. Analyses of groats and hulls of oats separately revealed that the fluorescing substances occur in the hulls. Aflatoxins B1 and G1 can be most conveniently differentiated from oat factors on thin-layer plates coated with Silica Gel G-HR and developed with 5 or 7% methanol in chloroform. Extracts of oats were purified on thin-layer plates and then treated with trifluoroacetic acid and with formic and acetic acids in the presence of thionyl chloride in an attempt to prepare derivatives. Thin-layer chromatograms of treated extracts showed that products formed were not similar to those obtained when aflatoxins were treated with the same reagents.