Development and validation of a rapid lateral flow test for the detection of fluoroquinolones in meat and blood

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.