Potential applications of rapid microbiological methods for detection of antibiotic residues in wastewater, surface and well water

The goal of the present study was to determine whether the commercial microbiological and tracer assays for the detection of antibiotics in the food were also useful and sensitive enough for testing water samples. Diffusion tests Delvotest® SP-NT and BRT-AiM showed the similar sensitivity to tested antibiotics in spiked water samples. Both tests showed the similar sensitivity to examined antibiotics in water as it was published in milk, while tracer assay BetaStar showed slightly higher minimum detection levels for penicillin and ampicillin but not for cloxacillin. The previous concentration of the samples by lyophilization took place to detect concentrations of antibiotics 100-fold lower than there were the minimum detection limits of the assays. The presence of inhibitory substances in surface and well samples was detected in 16 (16.3 %) cases out of 98 with both ampoule diffusion methods. The positive results were obtained at 15.0 % of surface water samples, while in well water the residues were found also in 16.9 % and 13.6 % samples, using Delvotest SPNT and BRT-AiM, respectively. The β-lactams were detected with BetaStar in 7.5 % of surface water samples. The 12 wastewater samples from hospitals were contaminated with inhibitory substances in 45.5 % (Delvotest SP-NT) orin 36.4 % (BRT-AiM).