Development and validation of a rapid lateral flow test for the detection of fluoroquinolones in meat and blood
María Jesús Serrano, Luis Mata, Silvia Pellicer, Isabel Segura-Gil, Pedro Razquín, Rafael Pagán
Abstract
Fluoroquinolones are antibiotics of considerable relevance in veterinary therapy. If they fail to be properly controlled, they can eventually reach animal-derived food products. As most of the biologically based screening tests used in surveillance plans are not able to detect fluoroquinolones, it would be highly convenient to devise a complementary test designed to detect them specifically. Therefore, a new lateral flow immunoassay test was developed for the ante and post mortem detection of fluoroquinolones in blood and meat samples, respectively, of the main food-producing species. In both matrixes, the test was able to detect most of the European Union-authorized fluoroquinolones at the Maximum Residue Limits set in the European Union for meat; as an instance, the limit of detection was 50 μg/kg for enrofloxacin, 200 μg/kg for flumequine, and 100 μg/kg for marbofloxacin. Hence, this new technique is proposed as an automatized, sensitive, specific, rapid, and robust tool for the management of fluoroquinolone residues in all stages of meat production: no only as a post morten method, in meat samples, but also as an ante mortem method, in blood samples from living animals.