A capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method with conductometric detection of biogenic amines (cadaverine, putrescine, agmatine, histamine, tryptamine and tyramine) is described. The optimised background electrolyte was the following: 15 mM histidine + 5 mM adipic acid + 1.5 mM sulphuric acid + 0.1 mM ethylenediaminotetraacetic acid + 0.1% hydroxyethylcellulose + 50% methanol. A clear separation of six biogenic amines from other components of acidic sample extract was achieved within 10 min. Method characteristics, i.e., linearity (0-100 micromol/ml), accuracy (recovery 86-107%), intra-assay repeatability (2-4%), and detection limit (2-5 micromol/l) were evaluated. Low laboriousness, sufficient sensitivity, speed of analysis, and low running cost are important attributes of this method. The developed method was successfully applied on the determination of biogenic amines in selected food samples.

Department of Food Preservation and Meat Technology Institute of Chemical Technology Prague Technická 3 166 28 Prague 6 Czech Republic