Abstract
Tetracyclines (TCs) are widely used for disease control in the livestock and poultry industry due to their broad spectrum of activity and affordability. However, some residues have been found to remain in the animals during slaughter and subsequent consumption. The potential of different cooking methods as strategies to reduce TC residues in pork were therefore investigated. Samples of pig muscles containing oxytetracycline (OTC), TC, chlortetracycline (CTC) and doxycycline (DC) residues were subjected to boiling, deep-frying or microwaving and the residues were extracted in a mixture of McIlvaine buffer-ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA)/methanol (75:25, v/v), and then analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-diode array detection on a XBridgeTM C18 reverse phase chromatographic column. Results show that TC residues in muscles were reduced by 45.35 to 67.05% after boiling for 9 min, 38.17 to 65.74% after deep-frying for 9 min and 38.17 to 48.47% after microwaving for 1 min. It can therefore be concluded that from a safety and toxicological point of view, reduction of TC residues in pig muscle is an additional advantage of cooking as a food processing method and it is recommended that more studies in other kinds of meats be done. Key words: Tetracyclines, pig muscle, cooking effects, antibiotics residues.
Highlights
Tetracycline antibiotics (TCs) have a broad range of activity against variety of gram-positive and gramnegative bacteria and are inexpensive
The procedure employed in this work involved four kinds of TC, all of which were extracted efficiently from both uncooked and cooked samples and accurately measured by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
Typical HPLC profiles of the TCs obtained from the standard solutions and the samples are shown in Figure 1, where the four TCs were well separated by the column with elution times ranging from about 3.5 to 11 min
Summary
Tetracycline antibiotics (TCs) have a broad range of activity against variety of gram-positive and gramnegative bacteria and are inexpensive They are an important group of antibiotics and are widely used in livestock and poultry production. Presence of excessive levels of antibiotics and other drug residues in products of animal origin has become a matter of considerable debate in food safety The residue of these molecules has been correlated to the appearance of allergic reactions, development of bacterial resistances, modifications in intestinal flora, and possible mutagenic and/or carcinogenic effects (Demoly and Romano, 2005). The US FDA has set the limit of MRLs of TC, CTC, DC and OTC antibiotic residues at 200, 600 and 400 ngg-1 in muscle, liver and milk, respectively (US Code of Federal Regulations, 2003)
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