Zeranol Residue Detected by HPLC in Bovine Meat from Three Different Cities in Java Island

Abstract

Zeranol is one of non-steroidal hormonal growth promoters (HGP) that is still permitted to be used in some countries such as Australia, the United States, and others to increase weight gain. However, this non-steroidal HGP is not permitted in Indonesia. The use of zeranol to increase the growth of livestock can cause the occurrence of residue in livestock tissues and organs, having a great dangerous potential for human health. This study aimed to investigate the presence of zeranol resi- dues in 105 samples of bovine meat collected from Jakarta, Surabaya, and Malang cities and analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The samples were added with the deprotein- izing extractant of 0.2% metaphosphoric acid and acetonitrile (6:4, v/v), and purified using SAX SPE cartridge. Zeranol was then analyzed by HPLC using Shimp-pack VP-ODS (4.6x250 mm) column with a mixture of acetonitrile-water (40:60, v/v) as the mobile phase and detected on photo diode ar- ray detector at 262 nm. The recoveries of the method of 3 different concentrations (2, 5, and 10 ng/g) of zeranol were 73.96% to 103.48%. The detection limit and quantification limits were 0.54 ng/g and 1.80 ng/g, respectively. Zeranol residues were detected in 12 (11.43%) out of 105 samples at the concentra- tion of 1.67 to 33.29 ng/g and 7 among them exceeding 2.0 ng/g. The results obtained in this study indicated that zeranol was still being used to increase cattle-meat production. Therefore, strict control must be implemented at all stages, from production to consumption, regarding the application of this HGP in livestock.