Chapter 15: Miscellaneous Methods for the Detection of Biogenic Amines

Great attention to biogenic amines (BAs) over the last two decades necessitates the development of sensitive methods for their assessment. Most BAs show no distinctive ultraviolet (UV) absorption, fluorescent or electrochemical activity, which makes their determination difficult. Various methods for the analysis of BAs are discussed in this chapter. Colorimetric and fluorometric methods are moderately cheap and fast methods that are based on absorption of ultraviolet/visible (UV/Vis) light, but they require sample clean up and purification and derivatization steps. Enzymatic methods including immobilized enzymes, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and biosensors improve selectivity of BA determination while being cheap, rapid and simple. Flow injection analysis is an automated, fast and miniaturized method for BA determination. Screening of BA-producing bacteria is made possible using culture techniques, enzymatic, chromatographic and molecular techniques are also discussed.