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An enzymatic procedure was developed to determine trimethylamine (TMA) in fish muscle extracts. The method utilized TMA dehydrogenase extracted and purified from Hyphomicrobium X and gave excellent correlations with the pick acid and HPLC methods. The minimum detectable TMA level was 0.05 pmoles. The entire enzymatic procedure required 15-20 min to complete. The method may be used in the laboratory as a spectrophotometric analysis or may be used semi-quantitatively as a visual color comparison test outside the laboratory. The method greatly simplifies the procedures for TMA determination and enables the estimation of microbiological quality of fish with very little laboratory equipment.

A diagnostic test strip assay for trimethylamine (TMA) was developed for the rapid evaluation of microbiological quality of seafood. The method is based on trimethylamine dehydrogcnase and is specific for TMA. Compounds such as trimethylamine oxide, dimethylamine, monomethylamine, and ammonia did not interfere with the mcasurement of TMA. The entire procedure required less than 5 min at room temperature. Visual comparison of unknown samples to a set of trimethylamine standards enabled the scmiquantitative analysis in the range of 0.2 to 5 wg trimethylamine nitrogen. The method enabled the rapid evaluation of seafood quality and correlated well with the traditional spectrophotometric procedure for the determination of TMA.