Screening methods for the detection of antibiotic residues in slaughter animals: comparison of the European Union Four-Plate Test, the Nouws Antibiotic Test and the Premi®Test (applied to muscle and kidney)

Abstract

Microbial growth inhibition tests are widely used as the primary screening approach for the detection of antibiotic residues in slaughter animals. In this study we evaluated and compared the performance of the European Union Four-Plate Test (EU4pt), the Nouws Antibiotic Test (NAT), and a commercial ampoule test, the PremiTest (applied to both muscle and kidney), by parallel analysis of 735 slaughter animals. The EU4pt only showed significant inhibition with two muscle samples containing 305 µg kg(-1) doxycycline and 648 µg kg(-1) tulathromycin, while an maximum residue limit (MRL) violation of 1100 µg kg(-1) sulfamethazine remained unnoticed. PremiTest-muscle only detected the sulfamethazine containing sample, all other (1.1%) suspect samples appeared false-positive results. The same test applied to kidney yielded 4.1% suspect samples, while the NAT screening (based on analysis of renal pelvis fluid) showed 4.9% suspect results. The vast majority of these samples contained tetracycline and/or aminoglycoside residues. PremiTest-kidney appeared to be more sensitive to aminoglycosides than the NAT screening, which failed to detect an MRL violation of 870 µg kg(-1) gentamicin in kidney. Detection of less than MRL levels of tetracycline residues by the NAT proved its suitability for this residue group. Whether PremiTest is sufficiently sensitive for accurate tetracycline detection in kidney remains doubtful, although changing over to kidney definitely improved the suitability of PremiTest for the detection of residues in slaughter animals.

Comparison of Four Microbiological Inhibition Tests for the Screening of Antimicrobial Residues in the Tissues of Food-Producing Animals

“…By comparing the results obtained in our study and the results published by Pikkemaat et al (2009Pikkemaat et al ( , 2011, we expected to have more comparable results. Although in our study the NAT yielded a lower number of positive results than the STAR, possibly due to differences in the sample preparation and the screening of tissue fluid obtained from frozen samples, the NAT must not be undervalued.…”

“…They detected that two positive samples were clearly betalactams, since the addition of penicillinase counteracted the inhibition. Pikkemaat et al (2011) in their study evaluated and compared the performance of the FPT and the NAT as the multi-plate test and the Premi ® Test as the tube test by parallel analysis of 735 slaughter animals. They detected that the FPT yielded a very low number of positive samples with the significant inhibition zones observed with only two samples on two test plates, the NAT yielded a total of 36 positive results with the initial screening of renal pelvis fluid on three test plates, and the Premi ® Test-muscle and Premi ® Test-kidney showed 9 muscle samples and 30 kidney samples positive, respectively.…”

The Growing Interest in Development of Innovative Optical Aptasensors for the Detection of Antimicrobial Residues in Food Products

“…Methods based on the inhibition of bacterial growth (e.g., plate tests, tube tests) are conventional methods for screening antimicrobial residues [6,7]. These methods have a wide spectrum of detection that is important for a screening method for MRL substances and are cheap.…”

Detección de residuos antimicrobianos en músculo, hígado y riñón de cerdo expendidos en Bogotá, Colombia

“…De los resultados para aminoglucósidos-estreptomicina que no fueron concordantes por las dos pruebas, se observó que la mayoría de resultados de muestras que presentaron residuos de este grupo de antimicrobianos fueron identificadas en riñón, por la prueba microbiológica, lo cual, se podría deber a la relativa baja sensibilidad a aminoglucósidos, que cita Vela et al (2014), de esta prueba de inhibición. Según Pikkemaat et al (2011), la diferencia en la detección de aminoglucósidos estaría asociada, principalmente, con la matriz usada, detectando, en lugar de aminoglucósidos, constituyentes del tejido renal.…”