High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of biogenic amines in fish implicated in food poisoning.

A rapid, sensitive and reproducible high-performance liquid chromatographic procedure for the determination of nine biogenic amines in fish by improved benzoylation with benzoyl chloride was developed. The benzoylation of amines with benzoyl chloride at 30 degrees C for 40 min was the optimal condition to eliminate the influence of interfering peaks during analysis. The calibration curve for each amine was linear within the range of 0.02-4 microg. The amine recovery from fish meat was better by extraction with 6% trichloroacetic acid than with 1 M HClO4. The application of this method to detect amines in a fried marlin fillet implicated in a food poisoning incident indicated that a high level (84.1 mg/100 g) of histamine was present in the sample.