Aminoglycosides belong to a group of carbohydrate containing antibiotics. All the aminoglycosides are potentially toxic compounds causing significant damage in vestibular and auditory functions in man as well as in animals. Nevertheless, they are used in practice because of their antibacterial and antifungal activities. The range between therapeutic effectiveness and toxicity is narrow, therefore, dosage must be monitored. Euro-Diagnostica has EIA kits for gentamicin, neomycin and streptomycin/dihydrostreptomycin available. The WHO/FAO Joint Expert Committee on Feed Additives (JECFA) proposed the following Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) for the aminoglycosides:

The Gentamicin EIA is a competitive enzyme immunoassay  for the screening of e.g. milk, serum, tissue and honey samples for the presence of this broad spectrum antibiotic. The dose-response curve shows a measuring range of 0.1-10 ng/ml. The antiserum used in the Gentamicin EIA shows a 25% cross-reactivity with sisomycin but no cross-reactivity (< 0.1%) with other aminoglycosides (neomycin, kanamycin, streptomycin, dihydrostreptomycin, tobramycin and amikazin). Defatted and diluted milk can be applied directly into the test with a detection limit of approximately 2 ng/ml. For honey samples a detection limit of 2.5 ng/g was found.

The Neomycin EIA is a competitive enzyme immunoassay for the screening of e.g. milk, serum, eggs, tissue and honey samples on the presence of this broad spectrum antibiotic. The dose-response curve shows a measuring range of 6-200 ng/ml. The Neomycin EIA shows no cross-reactivity (< 0.1%) towards other aminoglycosides (gentamicin, kanamycin, streptomycin, dihydrostreptomycin, sisomycin, tobramycin and amakizin). Defatted and diluted milk can be applied directly into the test with a detection limit of 18 ng/ml. Eggs and tissue samples are analysed after a trichloroacetic extraction resulting in detection limits of 14 ng/g and 10 ng/g, respectively.

The Streptomycine EIA is a competitive enzyme immunoassay for the screening of honey, milk and tissue samples. The dose-response curve shows a measuring range of 0.3-20 ng/ml. The antibodies show high cross-reactivity towards streptomycin (100%) and its major metabolite dihydrostreptomycin (100%). The cross-reactivities towards other aminoglycosides (gentamicin, neomycin, kanamycin, sisomycin, tobramycin and amikazin) are < 0.1%. Defatted and diluted milk samples can be applied directly into the test with a detection limit for streptomycin and dihydrostreptomycin of approximately 4 ng/ml. For honey samples detection limits of 6 ng/g (after dilution in buffer) and 3 ng/g (after solid phase extraction) were found.