Dabsyl derivatisation as an alternative for dansylation in the detection of biogenic amines in fermented meat products by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography

The commonly applied HPLC method to determine biogenic amines in dry fermented meat after dansylation was compared with an alternative dabsylation procedure. The use of dabsyl chloride at 70 °C resulted in a 25-min reduction of the derivatisation time, in comparison with the dansylation at 40 °C. Furthermore, the use of irritating ammonia to remove the excess of dansyl chloride can be avoided. Introduction of the SPE cleaning procedure on the C18 cartridge resulted in a reliable and sensitive method of biogenic amines determination in a complex protein–fat matrix, which is typical of dry fermented sausages. ogenic amines tryptamine (TRYP), phenethylamine (PHE), putrescine (PUT), cadaverine (CAD), histamine (HIS), serotonin (SER), tyramine (TYR), and the natural polyamines spermidine (SPD) and spermine (SPM), were separated by means of gradient HPLC, using the two coupled C18 Chromolith reversed-phase columns.