A short review on the basic theory and practices of the extraction and
clean-up of agricultural antibiotics from biomatrices is presented. F
or the analysis of residues of ionophores, beta-lactams, macrolides, c
hloramphenicol, aminoglycosides, tetracyclines and peptide antibiotics
, the use of solid-phase extraction has become nearly ubiquitous as pa
rt of the basic extraction methodology. The majority of the methodolog
ies for these compounds report recoveries greater than 70%, with relat
ive standard deviations usually less than 15%. Each of the antibiotic
classes, as well as antibiotics within each class, have unique chemist
ries that must be taken into account when developing a viable extracti
on method. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.