Reduction of biogenic amines in fermented fish sauces by using Lactic acid bacteria

Abstract

Fish sauce is a fermented product which is used mainly in south Asian countries. Fish sauce contains many vitamins and minerals, and all essential amino acids and is especially high in lysine. Despite the positive nutritional characteristic, these products contain biogenic amines as unhealthy compounds. Biogenic amines are secondary metabolites which formed by microbial decarboxylation of respective amino acids or by amino acid transaminase activity on aldehydes and ketones, and categorized as bases with low molecular weight. These compounds are one of the prevalent issues regard to consumption of sea-foods, especially the cured and fermented products. Among the various compounds of biogenic amines, histamine, tyramine, putrescine, and cadaverine, are used for computing quality and biogenic amine indices for raw/processed sea-foods. Biogenic amines are a major causative agent of food borne diseases hence, their identification, and applying procedures corresponding to their decrement are significantly important in food industry. Many of the bacterial species are able to decrease biogenic amines in fish sauces. The application of bacteria possessing the biogenic amines degrading enzymes or starter cultures are novel techniques explored for reducing biogenic amines concentration in fermented fish products.