Monitoring the Levels of Biogenic Amines in Canned Fish Products Marketed in Ghana

Abstract

An ion-pair HPLC method with postcolumn o-phthalaldehyde (OPA) derivatization and fluorescence detection was validated for quantitative determination of five biogenic amines (histamine, tyramine, cadaverine, putrescine, and agmatine) in canned fish products (mackerel, sardine, and tuna) marketed in Ghana. The validated method exhibited excellent selectivity and good linearity (R2 > 0.9990) for all the amines. The limits of detection and quantification for studied biogenic amines were in the range of 0.32–0.78 mg·kg−1 and 1.10–2.57 mg·kg−1, respectively. Also, a satisfactory recovery was obtained for all the amines (82.1–101.4%), and the relative standard deviations were lower than 9.3% under repeatability conditions for the studied amines. Subsequently, the method was applied to the analysis of biogenic amines in canned fish products to estimate the safety of Ghanaian consumers. The maximum levels of histamine, tyramine, cadaverine, putrescine, and agmatine detected in the analysed canned fish products were 64.05 mg·kg−1, 27.44 mg·kg−1, 27.23 mg·kg−1, 18.74 mg·kg−1, and 52.72 mg·kg−1, respectively. Thus, the levels of biogenic amines detected in the canned fish products were lower than the acceptable levels and, therefore, can be considered relatively safe for human consumption.

Selected Instrumental Techniques Applied in Food and Feed: Quality, Safety and Adulteration Analysis

“…Biogenic amines could be found in fresh foods such as vegetables, fruits, meats, or fish since they are matrices with high protein content and can undergo proteolysis during storage [ 359 , 360 , 361 , 362 , 363 , 364 , 365 ]. The content in fresh products is not high enough to cause maximum intoxication.…”

“…However, biogenic amines have weak chromophores in their structure, so many of these methods use UV, DAD/PDA, or FLP detectors [ 359 , 362 , 368 ] and, hence, derivatization techniques (pre-column or post-column). The pre-column derivatization is more sensitive and is, therefore, used more frequently than post-column derivatization [ 353 , 354 , 358 , 359 , 360 ]. Recently, Munir and Badri [ 358 ] described in detail derivative compounds to use derivatizing agents, though the most commonly used are dansyl chloride and o -phtaldehyde.…”

“…Though derivatization-based methodologies are widespread, they are tedious, usually lengthy, as reactions need to be controlled, and are highly susceptible to interferences such as lipids or proteins present in the matrix, which could cross-react with the reagent and decrease the sensitivity of the technique [ 358 , 359 , 360 , 371 ]. Biogenic amine analyses have been recently carried out using mass detectors, which brings several advantages such as a shorter sample treatment and greater sensitivity [ 356 , 358 ] but with results comparable [ 364 ] to the methods mentioned above.…”

Determination of biogenic amines in alcoholic beverages using a novel fluorogenic compound as derivatizing reagent

“…Common methods for BAs determination are chromatographic ones, such as thin-layer chromatography (TLC), 6,7 capillary electrophoresis (CE), [8][9][10][11] gas chromatography (GC), [12][13][14][15][16] and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] HPLC is the most widely used because of its high resolution, sensitivity, efficiency, and reliability. Nevertheless, a single chromatographic approach to simultaneously determine mixture of BAs without derivatization is not feasible due to the lack of adequate chromatographic or absorption/uorescence properties.…”

“…Fluorescent reagents are widely used in the pre-column or post-column derivatization in high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with uorescence detection (HPLC-FLD), which dramatically enhances the sensitivity of the detection of BAs. 6-Aminoquinolyl-N-hydroxysuccinimidyl carbamate (AQC), 17,18 dansyl chloride (DNS-Cl), [19][20][21][22][23] 9-uorenylmethyl chloroformate (FMOC-Cl), 24,25 and O-phthalaldehyde (OPA) [26][27][28][29] are some popular derivatizing reagents used for the determination of BAs. AQC, DNS-Cl, and FMOC-Cl all have intrinsic uorescence and may generate uorescent by-products during the derivatization process, which complicates BAs' quantitative analysis.…”