An aflatoxin in the liver of a patient with Reye-Johnson syndrome

Liver specimens from 8 patients with Reye-Johnson syndrome, 2 patients with acute encephalopathy, and 10 patients without liver disease were analyzed for aflatoxins. An aflatoxin was obtained from the liver of one patient, a 15-year-old girl who had clinical, laboratory, and pathologic features of Reye-Johnson syndrome. Thin-layer chromatography, fluorescence emission, infrared spectroscopy, and derivatization studies characterized the aflatoxin as related structurally to but not identical with aflatoxin B1. This report is added to previous ones from Thailand, New Zealand, and Czechoslovakia in which the association of aflatoxins and fatty liver has been found in Reye-Johnson syndrome.