Comparison of microbiological and HPLC – fluorescence detection methods for determination of niacin in fortified food products

A comparison has been made between results obtained by a recently published HPLC method, involving post-column reaction and fluorescence detection, with a microbiological assay using Lactobacillus plantarum. The HPLC method includes a modified acid hydrolysis extraction step (0.1 M HCl) and yields niacin values from fortified foods somewhat lower than by the microbiological assay. The most significant differences were observed for the cereal-based products. These differences arise principally from the lack of specificity of L. plantarum and from the stronger acid hydrolysis extraction conditions (1 M HCl) of the microbiological assay, which probably releases a part of the non-bioavailable niacin. Moreover by HPLC, excellent recoveries of added nicotinic acid and nicotinamide (95–100%) were obtained and better precision (RSDr=0.3–0.8%) was observed than from the micobiological assay.