Rapid determination of histamine levels in canned tuna by a novel spectrophotometric method

Histamine is the most common biogenic amine and is responsible for Scombroid fish poisoning. The presence of histamine at high concentrations in foodstuff indicates a public health issue Therefore, to the assurance of safety and quality, the monitoring of histamine concentration in fish and fishery products is urgent. To this aim, histamine content in 30 samples of canned tuna was measured by the UV-Vis spectrophotometry method. Linear regression was gained (R2 = 0.9905). The range of histamine levels was calculated between 85.04-125.08 mg kg-1 with an overall mean of 98.104 ± 5.18 mg kg-1. 40% of the samples were contained more than 100 mg kg-1, the allowable limit declared by Iranian National Standard (INS). However, The histamine amount of all samples were below the limit set by Codex Alimentarius (200 mg kg-1). There was no significant difference between the mean values of histamine in various brands of canned tuna. This spectrophotometric method used in this study can be introduced as a simple, applicable method for rapid monitoring of fish products, which is based on histamine reaction with copper and Alizarin Red S.