Preliminary studies about the occurrence of histamine in seaweed from Ceará State, Brazil.

Abstract

Histamine is a primary amine formed from microbial decarboxylation of L-histidine. Consumption of food containing high levels of histamine might induce an intoxication known as histaminic poisoning. Histamine occurs in a wide range of land plants, but has been reported in a very limited number of marine algae. In this paper, fifteen marine macroalga species were collected at Guajiru beach, Trairi-CE. The presence of histamine was investigated using RP-HPLC. Standard solution of histamine showed a retention time of 8.24 ± 0.05 min (n = 15). Chromatography of Botryocladia occidentalis and Criptonemia crenulata presented a component with approximately the same retention time as histamine, 8.26 ± 0.03 min and 8.27 ± 0.03 min, respectively. For the other species, chromatograms did not show a component similar to histamine.