Liquid Chromatography–Single-Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry as a Responsive Tool for Determination of Biogenic Amines in Ready-to-Eat Baby Foods

Baby food has never been the object of biogenic amine profiling. The aim of this study was to develop a highly sensitive method for analysis of biogenic amines in ready-to-eat baby foods. The principle of the developed method involves high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to single-quadrupole mass spectrometry (HPLC–APCI–MS) of dansyl derivatives, presented also in comparison with common diode array and fluorescence detection systems. The confirmation of correct identification of derivatives was performed by in-source fragmentation of the product ion at 170 m/z, performed only in one MS analyzer. The method was used to identify the amine profile and quantify the putrescine, cadaverine, histamine, tyramine, spermidine, and spermine content in 68 ready-to-eat baby foods. The limits of detection and quantification were in the range of 0.07–1.67 and 0.2–5.0 ng mL(− 1). The method enabled quantification of amines at ng/g level in almost all analyzed samples, without any preconcentration step. Amine recoveries of 86.0–105.2% were obtained with RSD ≤ 9.7%. The developed method could be used for quantification of the most frequently occurring BAs in foods including vegetables, fish, meat, or fruit at previously undetectable concentration levels, making the method multimatrix applicable and highly-sensitive. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10337-018-3527-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.