Determination of the biotin content of select foods using accurate and sensitive HPLC/avidin binding

Abstract

Assessing dietary biotin content, biotin bioavailability, and resulting biotin status are crucial in determining whether biotin deficiency is teratogenic in humans. Accuracy in estimating dietary biotin is limited both by data gaps in food composition tables and by inaccuracies in published data. The present study applied sensitive and specific analytical techniques to determine values for biotin content in a select group of foods. Total biotin content of 87 foods was determined using acid hydrolysis and the HPLC/avidin-binding assay. These values are consistent with published values in that meat, fish, poultry, egg, dairy, and some vegetables are relatively rich sources of biotin. However, these biotin values disagreed substantially with published values for many foods. Assay values varied between 247 times greater than published values for a given food to as much as 36% less than the published biotin value. Among 51 foods assayed for which published values were available, only seven agreed within analytical variability (720%). We conclude that published values for biotin content of foods are likely to be inaccurate.

Quantification of biotin in feed, food, tablets, and premixes using HPLC–MS/MS

“…A detailed investigation of all these influences is very difficult and not feasible during routine analysis when dealing with samples of unknown composition. Recently, published work using a more specific detection technique (HPLC/avidin binding) [4] indicates that many literature values for the biotin content of food may have to be reinvestigated using a method as the described. The microbiological assay is also time-consuming, as it involves incubation of the test organism with the sample extract for 19 h.…”

“…The physical properties of biotin, e.g., the absence of a chromophor suitable for sensitive UV detection, and a high polarity of the molecule making it unsuitable for GC analysis, complicate the analysis in low concentrations. Published alternative methods include HPLC with fluorescence detection after post-column derivatisation [5], HPLC-MS [6,7], and various assays based on protein-binding, mainly using the strong biotin-avidin interaction [4,[8][9][10][11][12]. In our laboratory, a microbiological assay [3] has been applied routinely for more than three decades.…”

Scientific Opinion on Dietary Reference Values for biotin

“…Dose-response relationships between biotin intakes and these biomarkers have not been established. Staggs et al (2004) compared the biotin content of 87 foods measured by HPLC/avidin-binding assay to values published from earlier analyses, mostly using bioassays. This study confirmed previous assessments that meat, fish, poultry, egg, some cheeses and some vegetables are rich dietary sources of biotin.…”

Influences of dietary biotin and avidin on growth, survival, deficiency syndrome and hepatic gene expression of juvenile Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus

“…, nitrite NO 2 -and nitrate NO 3 -were checked on a weekly basis. At the end of the study, water samples were collected from the sump and the tape of the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) for total avidin binding substances (TABS) measurement in water (Mock et al 1995(Mock et al , 1997Staggs et al 2004). Suspended solids were removed using a sand filter, and effluent ammonia was reduced using a trickling biofilter; ammonia and nitrite concentrations were monitored twice weekly to assess biofilter performance.…”

“…This light yellow aqueous extract layer was diluted by 50-fold, and TABS were measured by competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (Mock et al 1997). Whole-body fish biotin content was determined according to the procedure developed by Mock et al (1997) as described by Staggs et al (2004). Briefly, the fish was first homogenized with Teflon homogenizer, followed by acid hydrolysis to release protein-bound biotin (Mock and Malik 1992;.…”