Rapid determination of tyramine in fish feed and slaughter offal by HPLC using coulometric detection

Fish feed and slaughter offal products may contain decomposition compounds such as biogenic amines. Owing to their harmful effects on animals fed with such products, there is a need for determining the amine content. In the work a simple and fast HPLC method, based on coulometric detection (EC) measuring only tyramine, was developed for routine quality screening. The samples were extracted with 0.4 mol/L perchloric acid and analysed directly by HPLC using a mobile phase of 0.2 mol/L potassium dihydrogen phosphate in water at pH 3. Tyramine was detected using a coulometric detector consisting of two analytical cells, the first one at 0.4 V and the second at 0.7 V. The calibration was linear over the range 4.52 to 452 ng/ml. The minimum detectable quantity was 10 pg/20 microliters. The reproducibility and the recoveries were high. Comparison of the tyramine content measured by EC or derivatization followed by ultraviolet detection showed that both methods gave similar results. HPLC using EC is a fast and sensitive method for analysing tyramine reliably in fish feed and slaughter offal samples without any time-consuming derivatization steps.