Bioactive Amines: Aspects of Quality and Safety in Food

Abstract

Presented in several types of food, bioactive amines are described as organic bases of low molecular weight. They have vasoactive, psychoactive and toxicological characteristics and constitute a potential health risk. The concentration of amines formed in foods depends on the type of microorganisms present, the action of decarboxylase enzymes produced by microorganisms on specific amino acids and favorable conditions for enzymatic activity. The presence of these chemical metabolites has been suggested as a quality indicator in routine analyzes for food production and marketing monitoring. The detection of bioactive amines can be performed by chromatographic methods, fluorometric and enzymatic kits. Bioactive amine formation can be prevented mainly through the adoption of good manufacturing practices, but the industry can also use other methods such as temperature control in the production chain, modified atmosphere packaging and food irradiation. This review aims to address the formation of bioactive amines in foods, emphasizing the formation and classification of these metabolites, aspects related to health, acceptable limits, detection methods and control methods used in the industry to ensure food safety and quality. The success of this approach is linked to the importance of bioactive amines as quality indicators, as well as the discussion on the development of methodologies for determining these substances and discussion of acceptable parameters in food.

Chemical Quality Indices for Freshness Evaluation of Fish

“…Spectrofluorimetry, thin layer chromatography, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are mentioned as the more relevant from the analytical point of view (Shalaby, 1999;Lapa-Guimarães and Pickova, 2004;Önal, 2007). ISSN 2166-10732014 Spectrofluorimetry has been used to determine amines individually (Andrade et al, 2012) and is considered by the AOAC as the official method in the USA and adopted as such in Brazil for the quantitative analysis of histamine in fish (AOAC, 2002;Brazil, 1997). However, recently high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) became the official method in Brazil for the determination of histamine and other biogenic amines (cadaverine, putrescine, spermidine, spermine) in fish through Normative Instruction no 25 (Brazil, 2011).…”

“…Biogenic amines are organic compounds with basic character and low molecular weight formed by decarboxylation reactions of precursor amino acids or by amination and deamination of aldehydes and ketones and synthesized in the metabolism of plants, animals and microorganisms (Brink et al, 1990;Bardócz, 1995;Sillas Santos, 1996;Rodriguez et al, 2014).…”

“…Therefore, the content of ATP degradation metabolites has been widely used as biological indicators of fish freshness degree. Saito et al (1959) were the first authors to propose a quality index based on the concentration of different nucleotides, to assess fish freshness degree, defined as K value calculated by the formula: ISSN 2166-10732014 www.macrothink.org/jfs From the application of the K value, Saito et al (1959) obtained values that allowed classifying some fish commercial species as: -K < 20%: very fresh fish, suitable to be consumed raw.…”

A new derivatization reagent for determination of biogenic amines in wines

“…According to Tuberoso et al (2015), the interaction between ethanol (a monoamine oxidase inhibitor) and amines seems to be synergistic. It should be noted, that most of bioactive amines, consumed in large amounts, represent a health hazard when the mechanism for their catabolism is impaired by disease, pharmacological agents or genetically (Rodriguez et al, 2014).…”

Potential biogenic amine-producing bacteria in ripened cheeses

“…Cheeses with high BA contents are associated with pediatric and adolescent migraine (Komprda et al, 2007;Millichap and Yee, 2003). Tyramine-rich foods such as cheese show a close relationship to migraine crises, and the toxic effects have been termed the cheese reaction (Schirone et al, 2013;Rodriguez et al, 2014).…”