Biogenic Amines Analysis by Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Biogenic amines (BAs) are basic, polar, or semi-polar compounds having low molecular weight present in various foods such as alcoholic beverages, cheese, fish, and meat products. Microbial decarboxylation of amino acids in food attributed to its improper storage can result in BAs’ formation. BAs exhibit their precursors’ characteristics, which are considered when analytical methods are being developed for their determination. BAs act as a nitrogen source and are precursors of many biochemical substances such as hormones, alkaloids, proteins, and nucleic acids. BAs are compounds of high polarity without intrinsic property. Moreover, these are present in low concentrations and more interfering compounds in complex matrices, making their determination and quantification difficult. The LC-MS system is one of the most powerful techniques used to determine different compounds in complex biological matrices with high quantitative accuracy. GC-MS and GC-MS/MS are commonly used techniques in clinical chemistry and allow the identification of analytes with even minute structural differences because of high resolution, high sensitivity.