Enrofloxacin and Ciprofloxacin Uptake by Plants from Soil

Very small amounts of pharmaceuticals present in everyday food may generate strains of resistant microorganisms in human and animal organisms. This study involves the uptake and accumulation of some widely used fluoroquinolones – enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin – by plants cultivated in soil augmented with drugs using the microbiological agar diffusion method. Bacillus subtilis was used as the test bacterium. The three plants chosen for the experiment were lettuce (Lactuca sativa), common barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.), which were cultivated in a laboratory in soils mixed with enroor ciprofloxacin at nominal concentrations of 500, 200, 50 and 10 μg/g. The concentrations of fluoroquinolones remained unchanged in the soil during the experiment. The presence of enrofloxacin was detected in all plants grown at enrofloxacin concentrations of 500, 200 and 50 μg/g. The presence of ciprofloxacin was only detected in barley and cucumber grown in soil with a base concentration of 500 μg/g. In lettuce, which had a longer vegetation period, the presence of ciprofloxacin was detected at all concentrations. The content of ciprofloxacin in the lettuce was 44 μg/g at a soil concentration of 10 μg/g: fluoroquinolones accumulate in a plant during the vegetation period.