Survey of Deoxynivalenol Contamination in Agricultural Products in the Chinese Market Using An ELISA Kit

A total of 328 agricultural product samples highly suspected to be contaminated, from flour companies, feed companies, and livestock farms throughout China, were surveyed for deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination using a self-assembly enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. An ELISA kit for DON was developed with a 4.9 ng mL−1limit of detection (LOD) in working buffer and a 200 ng g−1LOD in authentic samples. The DON contamination detection rate was 88.7%, concentrations ranged from 200.9 to 6480.6 ng g−1, and the highest DON contamination was found in distillers’ dried grains with solubles with an average of 3204.5 ng g−1. Wheat bran and wheat were found to be the most commonly contaminated samples, and the corn meal samples had the lowest average DON level. This ELISA kit is a powerful alternative method for the rapid, sensitive, specific, accurate, and high-throughput determination of DON and can meet the maximum requirement levels. This survey suggests that DON contamination in the Chinese market is serious, and the contamination risk deserves attention. Essential preventive measures should be implemented to ensure food safety and human health.Keywords:deoxynivalenol;contamination;survey;ELISA kit;agricultural productKey Contribution:A total of 328 agricultural product samples highly suspected to be contaminated were surveyed for deoxynivalenol using a self-assembly ELISA kit.