Clearance of biogenic amines from saliva following the consumption of tuna in water and in oil

Abstract

Biogenic amines, such as cadaverine, putrescine, spermine and spermidine (together with their metabolic derivatives) play an important role in human pathology and physiology [17]. In addition, there is increasing evidence that many of these molecules may also serve as biochemical diagnostic markers for cancer [14], diabetes [9] and bacterial infection [10, 21]. Accordingly, different analytical methods have been developed for the analysis of biogenic amines in biological fluids including ELISA [8], high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) [2], HPLC linked to mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) [6], the use of enzymatic sensors [15], capillary electrophoresis [22] and genetic methods employing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) [4]. In particular, Karpas and co-workers reported the use of Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS) for the measurement of various biogenic amines in the development of a diagnostic test for Bacterial Vaginitis (BV) [3, 12] and food freshness [13]. Based on this pioneering work, an instrument (VG-test) has been designed for the diagnosis of BV using samples of vaginal fluid collected by swab. It is now established that the presence of high levels of biogenic amines can also be indicative of bacterial degradation in foodstuffs [7, 16]. On the other hand, fish products such as canned tuna naturally contain relatively high levels of biogenic amines [18]. Consequently, dietary intake of tuna will affect both exogenous and potentially endogenous levels of biogenic amines in biological fluids, particularly in saliva. To assess the diagnostic utility of the VG-test as a convenient tool to determine levels of salivary biogenic amines, swab samples saturated in saliva were collected from a number of volunteers before and after the consumption of 20 g of canned tuna which had been carefully drained of its oil or water.