The application of ultra performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/QTOFMS) for the analysis of biogenic amines (BAs) and amino acids (AAs) in fermented foods

Abstract

A novel ultra-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/Q-TOFMS) system was applied for the detection of biogenic amines (or biogenic amines and amino acids) in various kinds of food samples. For the biogenic amine analysis, seven biogenic amines were analyzed in Korean traditional Bokbunja wines. The amines were first pre-column derivatized with dansyl chloride and subsequently extracted by a solid phase extraction cartridge. Then, the dansylated amines were separated on an AcquityTM UPLC column and detected with a micrOTOF-Q II mass spectrometer. The method was validated in terms of linearity, sensitivity, precision and recovery. The coefficient of determination (R2) was higher than 0.994 for all calibration curves. The limit of detection was between 3 ng/mL and 15 ng/mL. The intra- and inter-day precisions were below 5.0 % and 10.7 %, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied for the biogenic amine analysis of eighteen commercially available Bokbunja wines. None of the biogenic amine levels found in Bokbunja wines surpassed the toxic levels reported in the literature. While for the study of simultaneous determination of 23 amino acids and 7 biogenic amines in food samples, the target analytes were also pre-column derivatized with dansyl chloride and then separated in an longer AcquityTM UPLC column without SPE extraction procedure. The separation of 31 compounds including an internal standard was achieved within 25 min at a flow rate of 0.2 mL/min. The method linearity for each amino acid and biogenic amine had a relatively wide range with R2 > 0.99. The intra- and inter-day precision, expressed as relative standard deviation (RSD), ranged from 1.1 to 4.6 % and from 2.0 to 11.2 %, respectively. The limit of detection was between 0.005 and 0.4 ug/mL. With a simple dilution, recoveries of around 80 ~ 120 % were obtained for most of the compounds. No significant matrix effect was observed, and the developed method was successfully applied to the analysis of amino acids and biogenic amines in beer, cheese and sausage samples.