Evaluating Sardinella brasiliensis quality indicators through the quantification of histamine and bacterial communities

Alessandra Danile de Lira; Icaro Maia Santos de Castro; Michele Bertoni Mann; Luana Peixoto Mallmann; Caroline Isabel Kothe; Ana Paula Muterle Varela; Ana Paula Guedes Frazzon; Jeverson Frazzon

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04461

Evaluating Sardinella brasiliensis quality indicators through the quantification of histamine and bacterial communities

Heliyon. 2020 Aug 18;6(8):e04461. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04461. eCollection 2020 Aug.

Authors

Alessandra Danile de Lira¹, Icaro Maia Santos de Castro², Michele Bertoni Mann³, Luana Peixoto Mallmann¹, Caroline Isabel Kothe⁴, Ana Paula Muterle Varela³, Ana Paula Guedes Frazzon³, Jeverson Frazzon¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Food Science and Technology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil.
² Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), Porto Alegre, Brazil.
³ Department of Microbiology, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
⁴ Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, Micalis Institute, 78350, Jouy-en-Josas, France.

Abstract

Primarily formed by the microbial decarboxylation of the amino acid histidine, histamine is the leading global cause of food poisoning from fish consumption worldwide. In the present work, the quality of 12 fresh and 12 frozen marketed sardines (Sardinella brasiliensis) were evaluated for histamine concentration using High-performance Liquid Chromatography with Diode-Array Detection (HPLC-DAD), while the detection and quantification of histamine-producing bacteria were performed via quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR), and the microbiota composition of sardines was assessed through amplification of the 16S rRNA gene using high-throughput sequencing (HTS). According to the results obtained by HPLC-DAD, histamine concentration ranged from 226.14 to 583.87 mg kg^-1. The histidine decarboxylase (hdc) genes from gram-negative bacteria (Morganella morganii, and Enterobacter aerogenes) were identified. The most abundant microorganisms present in fresh sardines belong to the genera Macrococcus spp., Acinetobacter spp., and Pseudomonas spp., while the genera Phyllobacterium spp., Pseudomonas spp., and Acinetobacter spp. were most abundant in frozen sardines.

Keywords: Food analysis; Food safety; Food science; HPLC-DAD; High throughput sequencing (HTS); Histamine; Histidine decarboxylase; Microbiology; Microbiota; qPCR.