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The aim of this study was to determine ochratoxin A (OTA) concentrations in the raw materials and cooked meat products made from pigs sub-chronically exposed to OTA. The treated animal group (n=5) was administered with 300 μg OTA/kg of feed for 30 days, whereas the control group (n=5) was left untreated. OTA concentrations were quantified using immunoassay (ELISA) and high performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FD). OTA concentration was the highest in the kidney, followed by the lungs, liver, blood, spleen, heart, and adipose tissue. As for the final meat products, the highest average OTA concentration was detected in black pudding sausages (14.02±2.75 μg/kg), then in liver sausages (13.77±3.92 μg/kg), while the lowest was found in pâté (9.33±2.66 μg/kg). The results pointed out that a sub-chronic pig exposure leads to the accumulation of OTA in raw materials and consequently in meat products, whose level of contamination is directly dependent on OTA contents in raw materials used for their production., (© 2013.)

The objective of this study was to measure residual ractopamine concentrations in tissues of pigs as experimental animals after treatment with dietary ractopamine for 28 consecutive days. Ractopamine was administered orally to the experimental group (n=9) in a dose of 0.1mg/kg body mass per day, whereas control animals (n=3) were left untreated. Treated pigs (60kg) were sacrificed on days 1, 3 and 8 of treatment discontinuation and residues were determined in kidney, liver, muscle, brain and heart tissues using previously validated enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) as a quantitative screening method. Validation showed good mean recoveries (approx. 70-90%) with acceptable inter- and intra-day relative standard deviations (RSD<13%), demonstrating the method efficiency in determination of ractopamine tissue concentrations. The highest ractopamine concentration on day 1 (24h) after the last exposure was recorded in the kidney (12.49±7.96ng/g), followed by the liver (7.21±2.73ng/g), heart (1.26±0.12ng/g) and brain (0.63±0.05ng/g); at this time of withdrawal, residues were not detected in the muscle. Ractopamine was depleted rapidly from all study tissues, with mostly no detectable residues on day 8 of withdrawal., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)