Electrophoretic determination of histamine

An electrophoretic method (on-line coupled capillary isotachophoresis with capillary zone electrophoresis) with conductometric detection (cITP-CZE-COND) for the determination of histamine in foodstuffs and feedstuffs is described. Under optimised conditions in cationic mode the histamine is well separated from other components of acidic sample extract and detected by conductimeter within 25 min. Method characteristics, i.e., linearity (22-222 ng/mL), accuracy (recovery 91 ± 9%), repeatability (1.5%), reproducibility (3.4%), and detection limit (4 ng/mL) were evaluated. On a representative series of 37 food and feed samples it has been shown that the cITP-CZE-COND gives comparable results as routine accredited HPLC method. Low laboriousness, high sensitivity, speed of analysis, and low running cost are important attributes of cITP-CZE-COND.