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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #363615

Research Project: Sensing Technologies for the Detection and Characterization of Microbial, Chemical, and Biological Contaminants in Foods

Location: Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory

Title: A nondestructive detection method for mixed veterinary drugs in pork using line-scan Raman chemical imaging technology

Author
item WANG, WENXIU - China Agricultural University
item ZHAI, CHEN - China Agricultural University
item PENG, YANKUN - China Agricultural University
item Chao, Kuanglin - Kevin Chao

Submitted to: Journal of Food Analytical Methods
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/20/2019
Publication Date: 5/30/2019
Citation: Wang, W., Zhai, C., Peng, Y., Chao, K. 2019. A nondestructive detection method for mixed veterinary drugs in pork using line-scan Raman chemical imaging technology. Journal of Food Analytical Methods. 12(3):658-667.

Interpretive Summary: Current methods to detect veterinary drug residues in meats are generally time-consuming, labor intensive, destructive, and requiring pre-treatment procedures, making them difficult to use for real-time monitoring applications. This study reports for the first time using chemical imaging technology in nondestructive quantitative analysis of ofloxacin, chloramphenicol, and sulfadimidine residues in pork. These drugs are commonly used to treat bacterial infections. The results indicated that chemical imaging combined with the image pixel-ratio method was feasible to nondestructively detect ofloxacin, chloramphenicol, and sulfadimidine in meat over concentration levels of 0.05~0.2%, 0.04~0.18%, and 0.05~0.2%. The chemical maps at each specific wave number provide information about the distribution of the residual veterinary drug. This approach can serve as a potential method for the nondestructive and real-time inspection of food safety issues in muscle foods.

Technical Abstract: This study reports a nondestructive detection method using Raman chemical imaging (RCI) technology for the simultaneous determination of multiple veterinary drugs, such as ofloxacin, chloramphenicol, and sulfadimidine, in pork. A line-scan Raman imaging system was employed to acquire images of pure veterinary drugs and pork samples containing single and mixed drugs. Raman characteristic peaks at 1623, 1353, and 1147 wave number were identified for ofloxacin, chloramphenicol, and sulfadimidine, respectively. An image processing method was proposed to calculate the pixel-ratio values in each feature image, and linear regression models for a single veterinary drug were then established between the pixel-ratio values and the actual concentrations. By applying the models to samples with mixed veterinary drugs, the concentrations of the three drugs were predicted with correlation coefficients of 0.978, 0.986, and 0.984. The satisfactory results indicated that along with the proposed pixel-ratio method, RCI technology enables the nondestructive quantitation and spatial distribution visualization of multiple veterinary drug residues.