It appears to occur much less frequently than the aflatoxins, although analytical methods for its determination have not been as sensitive, and so it is possible that small concentrations in food commodities may not always have been detected.

Sterigmatocystin forms pale yellow needles and that are readily soluble in methanol, ethanol, acetonitrile, benzene, and chloroform.

[citation needed] Chronic symptoms include induction of hepatomas in rats, pulmonary tumours in mice, renal lesions and alterations in the liver and kidneys of African Green monkeys.

[citation needed] Toxic effects of sterigmatocystin-fed laboratory animals have included kidney and liver damage and diarrhoea.

Cattle exhibiting bloody diarrhoea, loss of milk production and in some cases death were found to have ingested feed containing Aspergillus versicolor and high levels of sterigmatocystin of about 8 mg/kg.

The instances reported have usually been on mouldy, or poor quality materials such as wheat, maize, animal feed, hard cheese, pecan nuts and green coffee beans.

While this lack of information may be due to deficiencies in the analytical methods, where surveys of good quality products have been carried out with reliable methodology, sterigmatocystin has rarely if ever been found.

Relatively high levels of sterigmatocystin have been formed in bread, cured ham and salami after inoculation with A. versicolor.

Methods using HPLC linked with atmospheric pressure ionisation mass spectrometric detection have been developed for foods such as cheese, bread and corn products.

Soon after it was recognised as a highly toxic compound, the California Department of Health Services used TD50 values from the Cancer Potency Database to produce 'no significant risk' intake levels for humans.