Infrared spectroscopy combined with random forest to determine tylosin residues in powdered milk.

The contamination of milk by antibiotic residues is a worldwide health and food safety problem. There is a need to develop new methods for the rapid determination of antibiotic residues in milk. A method has been developed for determining tylosin residues directly in powdered milk using Fourier Transformed Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Tylosin is a broad-spectrum macrolide antibiotic. The spectra obtained were submitted to chemometric analysis to obtain a prediction model for tylosin concentration in powdered milk. Using the Boruta algorithm, the absorption bands related to the milk contamination by the antibiotic were identified. Random forest was shown to be adequate for the prediction of tylosin residues in milk at low concentrations (≤ 100 µg L-1) and the prediction model generated showed high correlation and determination coefficients (greater than 0.95). The proposed methodology proved to be efficient for the investigation of antibiotic residues in powdered milk.

FTIR spectroscopy with chemometrics for determination of tylosin residues in milk.

BACKGROUND: Contamination of milk by antibiotic residues represents risks to the health of consumers; therefore they should be monitored. The objective of this study was to propose a methodology for the determination of tylosin residues directly in fluid milk based on mid-infrared spectroscopy associated with chemometrics, using attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy associated with multilayer perceptron network (MLP) and partial least squares (PLS). RESULTS: MLP was shown to be adequate for the discrimination of milk samples contaminated with tylosin below or equal to or above the maximum residue limit (MRL), with an accuracy greater than 99%, using FTIR spectra data. PLS was shown to be appropriate for the prediction of the very low concentrations (0-100 µg L-1 ) of tylosin residues in milk using FTIR spectra data. PLS models with high correlation coefficients (R > 0.99) were generated. CONCLUSION: FTIR with chemometrics proved to be a non-destructive, efficient and low-cost method for the investigation and quantification of tylosin residues directly in fluid milk. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.