Cytotoxicity of 20 derivatives of trichothecenes was examined with three cultured cell lines in human tissue origin, and this culture system was adopted for screening of toxic Fusarium species. All the trichothecenes exhibit a marked cytotoxicity and the highest toxicity was obtained with macrocyclic compounds such as verrucarin and roridin, followed by T-2 toxin and diacetoxyscirpenol. Application of this system to the screening of toxic Fusarium species resulted in the fact that over 70% total of isolates of Fusarium spp. derived from river sediments produced cytotoxic metabolite(s) into culture filtrates.
