The effect of high hydrostatic pressure on tetracycline hydrochloride and sulfathiazole residues in various food matrices – comparison with ultrasound and heat treatment

Abstract

Antibiotic residues in food pose serious direct and indirect risks for consumers. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of High Hydrostatic Pressure (HHP) on tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) and sulfathiazole (STZ) residues in honey, milk, and water. Three different pressures were tested for their efficiency and treatment at 580 MPa for 6 min was finally selected. Qualitative and quantitative determination of antibiotics were performed with HPLC and LC-MS. HHP treatment was compared to ultrasound and heat treatment. HHP treatment was found to be more effective than the other two methods for both antibiotics in water and milk. The reduction of STZ in honey was over 90%, while no reduction was observed for TCH. The highest TCH reduction was recorded after HHP treatment in water (76.4%) and the highest STZ reduction after ultrasound treatment in honey (94.3%). Reduction of the two antibiotics in different matrices did not follow a similar pattern. For the HHP treatment, the effect of the initial concentration of the two antibiotics was studied under two different storage conditions (refrigerated and frozen storage). The effectiveness of the method was found to be affected by the initial concentration, in both storage conditions for STZ, while for TCH significant differences were observed only for refrigerated storage.

Keywords:

• Antibiotics
• pressure
• ultrasound
• heat
• honey
• milk
• water
• residues

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the professor of Analytical Chemistry Mr. Nikolaos Thomaidis and the assistant professor of Food Chemistry Ms. Marilena Dasenaki of the Department of Chemistry of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens for their help with the sample analyses and Mr. Kanelis Dimitrios for his contribution with honey characterization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was partly funded by the program Τ2ΕDΚ-00371 (Greek-European Union co-funded ESPA).