Comparison of capillary zone electrophoresis and high performance liquid chromatography for the determination of histamine in bacterial culture media

The presence of histamine in foods is an important indicator of food spoilage and can also cause food poisoning in consumers. Therefore, monitoring of histamine level in food is important. This paper has focused on the comparing of capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) with HPLC for the determination of histamine in tryptic soy broth. For this reason, the culture media was inoculated with a standard strain of histamine-producing Staphylococcus epidermidis TYH1, as well as S. capitis and S. carnosus strains harboring histidine decarboxylase-hdc. The migration time of histamine in CZE assay and retention time of HPLC were found 5.4 and 12 min, respectively. The calibration graph was linear ranged 6.25 to 200 μg/ml which was estimated using the regression equation of y=0.000004x (r2=0.999) for both methods. Determination of histamine produced by these three strains indicated no significant differences using CZE with HPLC methods. The results show that the CZE is suitable for the determination of histamine in bacterial culture, since, there is no need for initial preparation, simplicity, sensitivity and low cost.