Mass spectrometric analysis of muscle samples to detect potential antibiotic growth promoter misuse in broiler chickens

• Published in: Food additives & contaminants. Part A, Chemistry, analysis, control, exposure & risk assessment Chemistry, analysis, control, exposure & risk assessment, 2012-01, Vol.29 (9), p.1413-1424
• Main Authors: Gibson, R, Cooper, K.M, Kennedy, D.G, Elliott, C.T
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: AGP; Animal Feed; Animal productions; Animals; Antibiotics; bacitracin; Biological and medical sciences; broiler chickens; carbadox; Chickens; cooking; Food additives; Food industries; fortified feed; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; growth promotion; Growth Substances - administration & dosage; macrolide; Mass spectrometry; Metabolites; monitoring; muscle; Muscle, Skeletal - chemistry; olaquindox; Poultry; QCA; rearing; residue; Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization - methods; spiramycin; Substance Abuse Detection - methods; Terrestrial animal productions; tylosin; Vertebrates; virginiamycin
• ISSN: 1944-0057; 1944-0049; 1944-0057
• DOI: 10.1080/19440049.2012.698398

Mass spectrometric methods were developed and validated for the analysis in chicken muscle of a range of antibiotic growth promoters: spiramycin, tylosin, virginiamycin and bacitracin, and separately for two marker metabolites of carbadox (quinoxaline-2-carboxylic acid and 1,4-bisdesoxycarbadox), and a marker metabolite of olaquindox (3-methyl-quinoxaline-2-carboxylic acid). The use of these compounds as antibiotic growth promoters has been banned by the European Commission. This study aimed to develop methods to detect their residues in muscle samples as a means of checking for the use of these drugs during the rearing of broiler chickens. When fed growth-promoting doses for 6 days, spiramycin (31.4 µg kg⁻¹), tylosin (1.0 µg kg⁻¹), QCA (6.5 µg kg⁻¹), DCBX (71.2 µg kg⁻¹) and MQCA (0.2 µg kg⁻¹) could be detected in the muscle 0 days after the withdrawal of fortified feed. Only spiramycin could consistently be detected beyond a withdrawal period of 1 day. All analytes showed stability to a commercial cooking process, therefore raw or cooked muscle could be used for monitoring purposes.