Evaluation of two microbiological methods for detecting residual antibiotics in milk

Two methods described in the AOAC Official Methods of Analysis for the detection of penicillin residues in whole milk were evaluated to determine the capability of each method to detect residues of 12 antibiotics used in the dairy industry. The first method, a cylinder-plate method that uses Sarcina lutea as the test organism, detected levels of 1 ppm of 8 of the 12 antibiotics tested. The second method, using paper disks with Bacillus subtilis as the test organism, detected approximately 1 ppm of only 4 antibiotics. This disk method was unable to detect less than 40 ppm of 5 of the antibiotics tested. The data indicate that the S. lutea cylinder-plate technique is more sensitive to more antibiotics than the B. subtilis disk method and is far superior for screening purposes.