Introduction
The purpose of this study was to develop a rapid, robust, and sensitive multi-class screening method for the detection of antibiotics in ground meat samples at maximum residue limit levels defined by Commission Regulation (EU) No 37/2010
Antibiotics consist of many different classes of compounds such as sulfa drugs, penicillins, tetracyclines, and cephalosporins, etc. These agents are used to treat infectious diseases for well over 70 years in humans. This usage has also been applied to food animals to control the bacterial harmful effect. In addition to this therapeutic use in food animals, antibiotics have been proven to promote growth when administered in small daily doses1. The mechanism of this phenomenon is unclear, but the use of antibiotics for growth promotion is on the rise and not well-publicized. According to US FDA, over 13 million kilograms of antibiotics approved for use in food animals were sold in the US and distributed to other countries in 2009. Over time, the daily use of low-dose antibiotics as feed supplements will promote antibiotic resistant bacteria. Furthermore, the subsequent consumption of the meat from these food animals can create the same phenomenon in humans and hamper the treatment of drug-resistant bacteria by conventional antibiotics. This improper use of antibiotics in food animals is an enormous concern to public health and safety. Many countries in the European Union and Canada have already banned sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in food animals.In order to regulate this practice, a sensitive and accurate screening method is required to detect antibiotics in meat produced from food animals. In this work, we demonstrate a rapid sample preparation and LC/MS/MS method for multi-class antibiotic screening from pork sausage using roQ™ QuEChERS dSPE (dispersive) cleanup kit and Kinetex® XB-C18 2.6 μm core-shell HPLC column. Limit of detection of 50 ppb was achieved with excellent signalto- noise ratios, which is the maximum residue limit for a number of antibiotics per Commission Regulation (EU) No 37/2010.
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