Nephrotoxicity of Penicillium aurantiogriseum, a possible factor in the aetiology of Balkan endemic nephropathy.
Water-soluble components of a nephrotoxic isolate of Penicillium aurantiogriseum have been fractionated by sequential ion-exchange, size-exclusion gel filtration, reverse-phase silica chromatography and HPLC. Nephrotoxicity in the rat was confined to a size-exclusion fraction approximating to 1,500 daltons, which also inhibited DNA synthesis in cultured kidney cells. The more sensitive in vitro assay allowed toxicity to be followed to a sub-fraction from gradient-elution HPLC which in further HPLC resolved into a small group of glycopeptides. Recent Yugoslavian P. aurantiogriseum isolates, from a village in which the idiopathic human disease Balkan Nephropathy is hyperendemic, elicited a similar nephropathology and were acutely cytotoxic, reinforcing a need to regard this novel Penicillium nephrotoxin as a potential factor in human nephropathy.
Department of Biochemistry, Imperial College, London, UK.
S E
SE
Yeulet
P G
PG
Mantle
M S
MS
Rudge
J B
JB
Greig
D000818:Animals; D001449:Balkan Nephropathy / Q000209:etiology*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D006801:Humans; D007672:Kidney Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000187:drug effects*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D009183:Mycotoxins / Q000633:toxicity*; D009395:Nephritis, Interstitial / Q000209:etiology*; D010407:Penicillium / Q000472:pathogenicity* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D051381:Rats
D009183:Mycotoxins