Various antimicrobial drug screen tests have been used in order to ensure food safety. However, the conventional screen teats, the Swab Test on Premises(STOP, USA), the Calf Antibiotic and Sulfa Teat(CAST, USA) and the European Economic Community 4-plate Test(FPT, EU) are not sufficiently rapid or sensitive enough to detect low levels of sulfa drugs in meat. We developed a new screen test kit for the determination of the antimicrobial residues in meat called the Bacillus megaterium Disk AssayBmDA). A comparison of BmDA with the older screen tests showed BmDA was as good as the older ones with several advantages. The new test kit is faster-it can be read in 4-6 hours instead of 16-18 hours. Moreover, BmDA can discriminate sulfa drugs from other antimicrobial drugs because p-aminobenzoic acid countacts the inhibiting action of sulfa drugs. Minimum detectable levels of sulfa drugs were significantly improved at the level of 0.025-0.1 ppm compared with the level of 1.0 ppm in FPT. A comparison of BmDA with the older screen tests in HPLC confirmed meat samples exeeded the Korean tolerance value of 0.1 ppm showed BmDA was the most sensitive in the microbiological screen tests. As the microbiological screen tests have already known, a person familiar with simple laboratory techniques should have no difficulty in using it to detect antimicrobial residues in meat. This would be a simple, economic method of antimicrobial residues detection which might be succesfully used by many laboratories.

The European Economic Community four plate test(EEC 4-plate test, FPT, EU) has been used for monitoring antimicrobial drug residues in meat by Local Veterinary Service Center in Korea. This study was performed to evaluate sensitivity and group specificity of some antimicrobial drugs in FPT and to compare FPT with Charm II test. The minimal detectable levels of targeted antimicrobial drugs tested with standard solutions were 0.025-1.0 ppm for 7 beta-lactams, 0.5-1.0 ppm for 4 aminoglycosides, 0.05-0.5 ppm for 5 macrolides, 0.05-0.25 ppm for 3 tetracyclines and 0.25-1.0 ppm for 6 sulfonamides. In identification of the families, five families of antimicrobial drugs were identified. In this case, beta-lactams, aminoglycosides, macrolides, tetracyclines and sulfonamides could be detectable. In comparison of FPT and Charm II test, the results of FPT were not accord with those of Charm II test having the group specificity of seven families of antimicrobial drugs in meat samples except some families like tetracyclines.