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Mycotoxins
Fd Cosmet. Toxicol. Vol. 13, pp. 567-569. Pergamon Press 1975. Printed in Great Britain
BOOK REVIEWS Residue Reviews. Residues of Pesticides and Other Contaminants in the Total Environment. Vol. 50. .Edited by F. A. Gunther. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1974. pp. xi + 179. $20.00. Nowadays the simultaneous or sequential application of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and/or growth regulators to crops is a common agricultural practice. Problems that may be associated with this procedure are comprehensively reviewed in a chapter included in this volume of Residue Reviews. The review is concerned with the interaction of chemicals that, when applied in combination, elicit responses not predictable from the effect of each chemical applied singly. For example, several classes of herbicides may interact with organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. Frequently, increased toxicity results, although in some cases, such as the trifluralinorganophosphate interaction, antagonism occurs. It is deduced that the basis for herbicide-insecticide interaction is frequently related to alteration of the absorption or metabolism of one compound by the other. The review documents sufficient reports of pesticide interactions in plants to indicate that such interactions may be frequent contributors to the unpredictability of herbicidal effects. It warns that caution must be exercised in combining herbicides with insecticides and fungicides where the compounds have a potential for interaction. Crop injury could result, although on the other hand certain combinations at low application rates might produce the desired level of control with no crop injury and with less potential for residue accumulation in the soil. The first part of a review on the analysis of pesticides by the thin-layer chromatographic-enzyme inhibition technique (TLC-EI) was published in a previous volume in this series (Cited in F.C.T. 1973, 11, 1111). Part II has now made its appearance. This deals primarily with the application of TLC-EI to the analysis of pesticide residues and metabolites, but it also considers papers dealing with TLC-EI analysis of heavy metals, phosphatase inhibitors, chlorinated benzenes and phenolic compounds. An alphabetical list of organophosphorus and carbamate pesticides serves as a quick reference for the compounds that have been analysed by TLC-EI techniques and are mentioned in the review. Last, but by no means least, Volume 50 contains various indexes. These include a cumulative subject index and a cumulative author index for Volumes 4150 and a list identifying by their short titles all the papers published in each of Volumes 1 50.
titis and can't quite remember. The opening chapters briefly summarize the properties of the skin and the different types of reaction that can occur. Chapter 5 is a competent listing of the commonest contact allergens (sensitizers) and indicates where they are most likely to be encountered. In chapter 6, reactions to ingested allergens are dispatched in 15 lines. This seems a little terse, particularly as that popular example, tartrazine, has escaped mention. Further chapters cover irritant contact dermatitis and its commoner causative factors, and phototoxic and photoallergic contact dermatitis. A thorough description of the principles of patch testing, and guidelines on the detection of the cause of an allergy are given, and the book closes with short chapters on the prevention and treatment of dermatitis and the rehabilitation of dermatitis sufferers. The text is well indexed and the layout is clear, but only a few general references are given. More thorough referencing would have been valuable, particularly as the book is said to be intended mainly for dermatologists who are not specialists in contact dematitis and as a guide for use in postgraduate training in dermatology. The author has provided a ready handbook for those who need to check certain aspects of dermatitis diagnosis, but there are places where brevity and consequent oversimplification may be misleading. For example, it seems rash to say: "Thioglycolates in permanent waving solutions are not sensitising', even though cases of sensitization are extremely rare. Perhaps in a second edition the International Contact Dermatitis Research Group could expand on what is essentially a very good idea. Mycotoxins. Edited by I. F. H. Purchase. Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1974. pp. xiii + 443. $44.25.
Mycotoxins have been a growth area of research since aflatoxin was discovered in the early 1960s. As Dr. Purchase points out in his introduction, the proliferation of literature in this area is ever-increasing and highly complex, and a book this size cannot hope to cover all aspects of mycotoxicology. However, the 20 chapters range over a wide spectrum of fungal toxins, providing a comprehensive review of the data on some of the more common ones. Among those covered are aflatoxins, rubratoxins, ochratoxins, sporidesmin, trichothecenes and the range of diseases in which they are implicated, citreoviridin, luteoskyrin, slaframine, patulin, ipomeamarone and ergot, which Manual of Contact Dermatitis. By S. Fregert, on was perhaps the first recognized mycotoxin. Although most of the diseases attributed to fungal behalf of the International Contact Dermatitis Research Group. Munksgaard, Copenhagen, 1974. pp. infection of foodstuffs have been observed in animals, the risks to man from individual toxins have been 107. Dan. Kr. 48.00. assessed wherever possible. Descriptions are given of At best, this little book is a concise summary of the identification of toxins responsible for various diswhat everyone needs to know about contact derma- eases, including turkey X disease associated with afla567
568
Book reviews
toxin, the facial eczema caused in sheep by sporidesmin from Pithomyces charterum on their grazing land, slobbering in cows due to slaframine produced by Rhizoctonia leguminicola on red clover, and stachybotryotoxicosis caused by trichothecene derivatives resulting from infection of feed with a saprophytic mould, Stachybotrys alternans. As far as is possible, a common format has been used for each chapter. Information on the diseases produced and their geographical distribution, on the fungi involved and their taxonomy and life-cycles, on the toxins identified, including details of their biosynthesis, chemistry and analysis, and on animal toxicology is given in a logical and concise manner. Quite surprisingly, this approach to what could be a bewildering and somewhat arid subject, has produced an eminently readable text. The volume is well referenced, printing errors seem to be few and far between, and the index appears to be quite thorough. Although the book is intended primarily for students, it should be a helpful source of information and reference for anyone with an interest in this field.
Birth Defects. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference, Vienna, Austria, 2-8 September, 1973. Edited by A. G. Motulsky and W. Lenz. Excerpta Medica, Amsterdam, 1974. pp. xviii + 373. $40.50. Congenital defects have attracted considerable attention in the last 15 years and the interest generated has led to the establishment of the new discipline of teratology. Much effort has been spent in describing the morphology of human and animal defects and in identifying their causes, and recently considerable attention has been paid to the experimental induction of birth defects by both physical and chemical agents, principally with a view to devising valid tests for the detection of teratogenic agents. The impressive advances that have been made in these fields and in the understanding of the subject at the molecular level occupied the majority of the communications presented at the 4th International Conference and reported in this book. Many of the chapters give an account of the structure and function of genetic material. Despite the fundamental importance of this information to the understanding of the molecular basis of birth defects, it is not on the whole of immediate relevance to toxicologists. Another major section of the book is devoted to practical considerations dealing mainly with the diagnosis of birth defects in utero. These are of interest to the clinician-who may have to decide on the termination of a pregnancy but again have little place in the practice of toxicology. In fact, the chapters of specific interest to those engaged in the safety evaluation of chemicals are only two. One of these, on the dominant lethal test, is written by W. Buselmaier, while the other, by H. V. Mailing, considers the host-mediated assay. Unfortunately, these chapters are too short for the extensive ground covered and consequently tend to be superficial and uncritical in their consideration of many of the points raised.
Therefore, despite its excellent presentation, this book offers relatively little to the toxicologist. It will be of value chiefly to those interested either in unravelling the complex genetic background of birth defects or in the prenatal diagnosis of foetal malformation.
Perinatal Pharmacology: Problems and Priorities. Edited by J. Dancis and J. C. Hwang. Raven Press, Publishers, New York; North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1974. pp. xii + 228. $23.10. This book presents the proceedings of a 3-day conference, held in Bethesda, Maryland, in April 1973, on existing problems and research priorities in perinatal pharmacology. The book comprises five main sections, dealing in turn with the effects of drugs on various aspects of foetal growth and differentiation, with the use of organ- and tissue-culture studies in this field, with the role of the placenta in mediating the effects of drugs on the foetus, with the influence of nutritional factors in perinatal pharmacology and with the effects of narcotics on the foetus. Each section reports the work of various contributors and at the end of each paper there is a list of references and, generally,, a verbatim report of the discussion prompted by the presentation. Common tendencies in published reports of conference proceedings are that the text may prove relatively lengthy for the amount of information presented and some of the discussions may border on the irrelevant or be unnecessarily argumentative, two disadvantages which this particular publication does not altogether avoid. Nevertheless, the lay-out is simple and the quality of presentation, including that of the figures and tables, is good. The book ends with an adequate, although not exhaustive, index. Before this, there is a final contribution entitled "Research Goals in Developmental Pharmacology". This was presented by Dr. B. L. Mirkin and warrants particular comment. Following his assertion that because "the concerns of developmental pharmacology may range from an assessment of drug influences at the time of administration to their effects at the completion of biologic maturation, a panoramic perspective is a necessary prerequisite for investigations in this area", the author lists, at great length and with many sub-divisions, the questions in this field requiring further investigation. This somewhat unusual approach, backed by Dr. Mirkin's experience as Chairman of an NAS-NRC committee studying this problem, merits a great deal of thought. The penultimate paragraph of this paper is a plea for greater leadership from the appropriate governmental health agencies in nurturing the discipline of developmental pharmacology--a plea, in effect, for more money. In spite of this excellent final chapter, with its detailed consideration of experiments necessary to further the subject, the proceedings as a whole suggest that a great deal of work, much of high quality, is already being carried out in this field, yet relatively little attention is being paid to relating this to the problems encountered in the unborn or newborn human infant. This is the greatest and most difficult challenge to meet.
BOOK REVIEWS Residue Reviews. Residues of Pesticides and Other Contaminants in the Total Environment. Vol. 50. .Edited by F. A. Gunther. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1974. pp. xi + 179. $20.00. Nowadays the simultaneous or sequential application of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and/or growth regulators to crops is a common agricultural practice. Problems that may be associated with this procedure are comprehensively reviewed in a chapter included in this volume of Residue Reviews. The review is concerned with the interaction of chemicals that, when applied in combination, elicit responses not predictable from the effect of each chemical applied singly. For example, several classes of herbicides may interact with organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. Frequently, increased toxicity results, although in some cases, such as the trifluralinorganophosphate interaction, antagonism occurs. It is deduced that the basis for herbicide-insecticide interaction is frequently related to alteration of the absorption or metabolism of one compound by the other. The review documents sufficient reports of pesticide interactions in plants to indicate that such interactions may be frequent contributors to the unpredictability of herbicidal effects. It warns that caution must be exercised in combining herbicides with insecticides and fungicides where the compounds have a potential for interaction. Crop injury could result, although on the other hand certain combinations at low application rates might produce the desired level of control with no crop injury and with less potential for residue accumulation in the soil. The first part of a review on the analysis of pesticides by the thin-layer chromatographic-enzyme inhibition technique (TLC-EI) was published in a previous volume in this series (Cited in F.C.T. 1973, 11, 1111). Part II has now made its appearance. This deals primarily with the application of TLC-EI to the analysis of pesticide residues and metabolites, but it also considers papers dealing with TLC-EI analysis of heavy metals, phosphatase inhibitors, chlorinated benzenes and phenolic compounds. An alphabetical list of organophosphorus and carbamate pesticides serves as a quick reference for the compounds that have been analysed by TLC-EI techniques and are mentioned in the review. Last, but by no means least, Volume 50 contains various indexes. These include a cumulative subject index and a cumulative author index for Volumes 4150 and a list identifying by their short titles all the papers published in each of Volumes 1 50.
titis and can't quite remember. The opening chapters briefly summarize the properties of the skin and the different types of reaction that can occur. Chapter 5 is a competent listing of the commonest contact allergens (sensitizers) and indicates where they are most likely to be encountered. In chapter 6, reactions to ingested allergens are dispatched in 15 lines. This seems a little terse, particularly as that popular example, tartrazine, has escaped mention. Further chapters cover irritant contact dermatitis and its commoner causative factors, and phototoxic and photoallergic contact dermatitis. A thorough description of the principles of patch testing, and guidelines on the detection of the cause of an allergy are given, and the book closes with short chapters on the prevention and treatment of dermatitis and the rehabilitation of dermatitis sufferers. The text is well indexed and the layout is clear, but only a few general references are given. More thorough referencing would have been valuable, particularly as the book is said to be intended mainly for dermatologists who are not specialists in contact dematitis and as a guide for use in postgraduate training in dermatology. The author has provided a ready handbook for those who need to check certain aspects of dermatitis diagnosis, but there are places where brevity and consequent oversimplification may be misleading. For example, it seems rash to say: "Thioglycolates in permanent waving solutions are not sensitising', even though cases of sensitization are extremely rare. Perhaps in a second edition the International Contact Dermatitis Research Group could expand on what is essentially a very good idea. Mycotoxins. Edited by I. F. H. Purchase. Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1974. pp. xiii + 443. $44.25.
Mycotoxins have been a growth area of research since aflatoxin was discovered in the early 1960s. As Dr. Purchase points out in his introduction, the proliferation of literature in this area is ever-increasing and highly complex, and a book this size cannot hope to cover all aspects of mycotoxicology. However, the 20 chapters range over a wide spectrum of fungal toxins, providing a comprehensive review of the data on some of the more common ones. Among those covered are aflatoxins, rubratoxins, ochratoxins, sporidesmin, trichothecenes and the range of diseases in which they are implicated, citreoviridin, luteoskyrin, slaframine, patulin, ipomeamarone and ergot, which Manual of Contact Dermatitis. By S. Fregert, on was perhaps the first recognized mycotoxin. Although most of the diseases attributed to fungal behalf of the International Contact Dermatitis Research Group. Munksgaard, Copenhagen, 1974. pp. infection of foodstuffs have been observed in animals, the risks to man from individual toxins have been 107. Dan. Kr. 48.00. assessed wherever possible. Descriptions are given of At best, this little book is a concise summary of the identification of toxins responsible for various diswhat everyone needs to know about contact derma- eases, including turkey X disease associated with afla567
568
Book reviews
toxin, the facial eczema caused in sheep by sporidesmin from Pithomyces charterum on their grazing land, slobbering in cows due to slaframine produced by Rhizoctonia leguminicola on red clover, and stachybotryotoxicosis caused by trichothecene derivatives resulting from infection of feed with a saprophytic mould, Stachybotrys alternans. As far as is possible, a common format has been used for each chapter. Information on the diseases produced and their geographical distribution, on the fungi involved and their taxonomy and life-cycles, on the toxins identified, including details of their biosynthesis, chemistry and analysis, and on animal toxicology is given in a logical and concise manner. Quite surprisingly, this approach to what could be a bewildering and somewhat arid subject, has produced an eminently readable text. The volume is well referenced, printing errors seem to be few and far between, and the index appears to be quite thorough. Although the book is intended primarily for students, it should be a helpful source of information and reference for anyone with an interest in this field.
Birth Defects. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference, Vienna, Austria, 2-8 September, 1973. Edited by A. G. Motulsky and W. Lenz. Excerpta Medica, Amsterdam, 1974. pp. xviii + 373. $40.50. Congenital defects have attracted considerable attention in the last 15 years and the interest generated has led to the establishment of the new discipline of teratology. Much effort has been spent in describing the morphology of human and animal defects and in identifying their causes, and recently considerable attention has been paid to the experimental induction of birth defects by both physical and chemical agents, principally with a view to devising valid tests for the detection of teratogenic agents. The impressive advances that have been made in these fields and in the understanding of the subject at the molecular level occupied the majority of the communications presented at the 4th International Conference and reported in this book. Many of the chapters give an account of the structure and function of genetic material. Despite the fundamental importance of this information to the understanding of the molecular basis of birth defects, it is not on the whole of immediate relevance to toxicologists. Another major section of the book is devoted to practical considerations dealing mainly with the diagnosis of birth defects in utero. These are of interest to the clinician-who may have to decide on the termination of a pregnancy but again have little place in the practice of toxicology. In fact, the chapters of specific interest to those engaged in the safety evaluation of chemicals are only two. One of these, on the dominant lethal test, is written by W. Buselmaier, while the other, by H. V. Mailing, considers the host-mediated assay. Unfortunately, these chapters are too short for the extensive ground covered and consequently tend to be superficial and uncritical in their consideration of many of the points raised.
Therefore, despite its excellent presentation, this book offers relatively little to the toxicologist. It will be of value chiefly to those interested either in unravelling the complex genetic background of birth defects or in the prenatal diagnosis of foetal malformation.
Perinatal Pharmacology: Problems and Priorities. Edited by J. Dancis and J. C. Hwang. Raven Press, Publishers, New York; North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1974. pp. xii + 228. $23.10. This book presents the proceedings of a 3-day conference, held in Bethesda, Maryland, in April 1973, on existing problems and research priorities in perinatal pharmacology. The book comprises five main sections, dealing in turn with the effects of drugs on various aspects of foetal growth and differentiation, with the use of organ- and tissue-culture studies in this field, with the role of the placenta in mediating the effects of drugs on the foetus, with the influence of nutritional factors in perinatal pharmacology and with the effects of narcotics on the foetus. Each section reports the work of various contributors and at the end of each paper there is a list of references and, generally,, a verbatim report of the discussion prompted by the presentation. Common tendencies in published reports of conference proceedings are that the text may prove relatively lengthy for the amount of information presented and some of the discussions may border on the irrelevant or be unnecessarily argumentative, two disadvantages which this particular publication does not altogether avoid. Nevertheless, the lay-out is simple and the quality of presentation, including that of the figures and tables, is good. The book ends with an adequate, although not exhaustive, index. Before this, there is a final contribution entitled "Research Goals in Developmental Pharmacology". This was presented by Dr. B. L. Mirkin and warrants particular comment. Following his assertion that because "the concerns of developmental pharmacology may range from an assessment of drug influences at the time of administration to their effects at the completion of biologic maturation, a panoramic perspective is a necessary prerequisite for investigations in this area", the author lists, at great length and with many sub-divisions, the questions in this field requiring further investigation. This somewhat unusual approach, backed by Dr. Mirkin's experience as Chairman of an NAS-NRC committee studying this problem, merits a great deal of thought. The penultimate paragraph of this paper is a plea for greater leadership from the appropriate governmental health agencies in nurturing the discipline of developmental pharmacology--a plea, in effect, for more money. In spite of this excellent final chapter, with its detailed consideration of experiments necessary to further the subject, the proceedings as a whole suggest that a great deal of work, much of high quality, is already being carried out in this field, yet relatively little attention is being paid to relating this to the problems encountered in the unborn or newborn human infant. This is the greatest and most difficult challenge to meet.