Basheer Ahamad, DTANUVAS2020-03-132020-03-132018-04http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810145363TNV_SIJVS_2018_5(4)12-31Citrinin (CTN) is a secondary product of fungal metabolism, first isolated by Hetherington and Raistrick from a culture of Penicillium citrinum Thom (Hetherington and Raistrick, 1931). Meanwhile, several other fungal species within the three genera, Penicillium (P. expansum, P. verrucosum), Aspergillus (A. terreus), and Monascus (M. ruber) were also found to produce this mycotoxin (Ciegler et al., 1977, Bragulat et al., 1977). CTN contaminates maize (Nelson et al., 1985), wheat, rye, barley, oats (Scott et al.,1972), and rice (Tanaka et al., 2007). Citrinin was considered as a potential antibiotic (IARC, 1986), but its toxic properties prevented its therapeutic use. Citrinin (CTN), a low molecular weight compound, that melts at 172oC and is soluble in dilute sodium hydroxide, sodium carbonate, methanol, ethanol and other polar solvents (Leatherhead Food Research, 2000) was first isolated as a pure compound from a culture of Penicillium citrinum in 1931. Later, yellowish coloured rice imported from Thailand to Japan in 1951 was found to be contaminated with citrinin. Subsequently, it was identified in over a dozen species of Penicillium including certain strains of Penicillium camemberti (used to produce cheese) and several species of Aspergillus ( Aspergillus terreus, Aspergillus niveus) and Aspergillus oryzae, the latter being used to produce sake, miso, and soy sauce (Manabe, 2001).enVeterinary ScienceArticle