natural deoxynivalenol contamination of corn produced in golestan and moqan areas in iran

deoxynivalenol contamination was determined in corn produced in golestan and ardabil (moqan) provinces, iran, in 2004-2005. samples were collected from different stages of production, including before harvest, at harvest, post harvest as well as after drying. ground sub samples were extracted with water; each extracted sample was cleaned up through an immunoaffinity column. deoxynivalenol was estimated through reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (hplc). the linearity of standard curve for 50 -10,000 ng ml-1 of standard solutions was proved (r2= 0.9999). detection limit was 10 ng g-1. recovery of the method for 1,000 and 500 ng g-1 spiked samples was 73.5% and 93.5% (n= 5). deoxynivalenol contamination was found in 76.7% of samples in the range of 54.4-518.4 ng g-1. the mean of contamination was 116.25 ng g-1. this is the first report of natural don contamination of corn from iran.