Determination of biogenic amines in Persian Gulf fish: application of stirrer bead milling extraction method

Abstract

Biogenic amines forms in food by microbial enzymatic decarboxylation of amino acids and excessive consumption of these amines can be of health concern. Many techniques have been developed for the extraction of biogenic amines in food, including acidic or organic extraction as well as solid phase extraction. In this study, we described an alternative method based on a stirrer bead milling for extraction of biogenic amines from fish muscles. The rate and stirring time were optimized with an experimental design optimization procedure. The developed method was compared with the traditional homogenization extraction method. After a derivatization step with benzoyl chloride, samples were analyzed for amines quantitative determination with RP-HPLC system. The analysis method showed good linearity (correlation coefficients of 0.9989) and good recoveries (>94.23 %). The repeatability and reproducibility of the method, in terms of the relative standard deviation, ranged from 1.6 to 2.6 % and 3.3 to 4.9 % respectively. Moreover, the detection limits of biogenic amines were calculated between 0.05 and 0.09 mg kg−1 in fish samples. The proposed method has been applied to the analysis of different fish species of the Persian Gulf. Low biogenic amine levels were found in most fish samples. Total biogenic amine contents of selected samples were ≤68.3 mg kg−1.