A Review of Detection of Antibiotic Residues in Food by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Antibiotics, as veterinary drugs, have made extremely important contributions to disease prevention and treatment in the animal breeding industry. However, the accumulation of antibiotics in animal food due to their overuse during animal feeding is a frequent occurrence, which in turn would cause serious harm to public health when they are consumed by humans. Antibiotic residues in food have become one of the central issues in global food safety. As a safety measure, rapid and effective analytical approaches for detecting these residues must be implemented to prevent contaminated products from reaching the consumers. Traditional analytical methods, such as liquid chromatography, liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, and capillary electrophoresis, involve time-consuming sample preparation and complicated operation and require expensive instrumentation. By comparison, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has excellent sensitivity and remarkably enhanced target recognition. Thus, SERS has become a promising alternative analytical method for detecting antibiotic residues, as it can provide an ultrasensitive fingerprint spectrum for the rapid and noninvasive detection of trace analytes. In this study, we comprehensively review the recent progress and advances that have been achieved in the use of SERS in antibiotic residue detection. We introduce and discuss the basic principles of SERS. We then present the prospects and challenges in the use of SERS in the detection of antibiotics in food. Finally, we summarize and discuss the current problems and future trends in the detection of antibiotics in food.