Detection of chloramphenicol in chicken, pork and fish with a molecularly imprinted polymer-based microtiter chemiluminescence method

In this study, 4-nitrotoluene (NT) was used as dummy template to synthesize a molecularly imprinted polymer that was highly specific for chloramphenicol. The polymer was coated in the wells of 96-well microplates as recognition reagent to develop a chemiluminescence method. The analyte solution and an enzyme-labelled hapten were added into the wells to perform competition, and the light signal was induced with a highly efficient luminol-H2O2-4-(imidazol-1-yl)phenol system. Then, the optimized method was used to determine chloramphenicol in meat (chicken, pork and fish), and the limit of detection (LOD) was 5.0pg g(-1). Furthermore, the polymer-coated plate could be reused four times, and one test could be finished within 20min. The recoveries from the standard fortified blank meat samples were in the range of 71.5-94.4%. Therefore, this method could be used as a useful tool for routine screening the residue of chloramphenicol in meat samples.