Product OATS procedure

An environmental protocol has been developed to assess the significance of newly discovered hazardous substances that might enter soil, water, and the food chain. Using established laboratory procedures and C-labeled 2,3,7,8-tetra-chlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), gas chromatography, and mass spectrometry, we determined mobility of TCDD by soil TLC in five soils, rate and amount of plant uptake in oats and soybeans, photodecomposition rate and nature of the products, persistence in two soils at 1,10, and 100 ppm, and metabolism rate in soils. We found that TCDD is immobile in soils, not readily taken up by plants, subject to photodecomposition, persistent in soils, and slowly degraded in soils to polar metabolites. Subsequent studies revealed that the environmental contamination by TCDD is extremely small and not detectable in biological samples. 

Dihydropyrenophorin, from Drechslera avenae, is a leaf pathogen of both wild and cultivated oats. It causes reddish brown lesions with a necrotic sunken center. At least one compound isolated from broth cultures of this fungus caused comparable lesions on oats and a variety of other plants at 3.2 x 10" M (15). The phytotoxin was characterized by spectrometric analyses and chemical conversion as (-)-dihydropyrenophorin (Vl), an important di lactone macrolide (15). However, the major product obtained in our extraction procedure used to isolate (-)-dihydropyrenophorin was the diol VII (j 6), which was not active in our bioassay tests. 

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