Inhibition of histamine accumulation by novel histamine‐degrading species of Staphylococcus sp. isolated from goats and sheep milk

Histamine is an active amine compound that occurs in various fermented foods that may cause adverse effects on the human health. Certain microorganisms are able to degrade histamine by an oxidative deamination reaction. Therefore, the present study aimed to quantify histamine‐forming and/or ‐degrading activity of the isolates derived from milk of goat and sheep herds, in Iran, by the capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method; and we evaluated the molecular characteristics of staphylococcal isolates. Among 243 staphylococcal isolates, 29 histamine‐degrading bacteria were identified. One of these isolates, identified as Staph. epidermidis, No. 605, exhibited the highest activity compared to others, degrading available histamine to 58.33% within 24 h. By polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis, the isolate, No. 605 that exhibited remarkable histamine‐degrading activity lacked the genes encoding coagulase and DNase, nor did it harbor any of the five classical enterotoxin genes. This is the first report to show that seven Staphylococcus species, including Staph. chromogenes, Staph. aureus, Staph. haemolyticus, Staph. epidermidis, Staph. pseudintermedius, Staph. agnetis, and Staph. hyicus, were able to degrade histamine, which were hitherto not known to have this capacity. Therefore, histamine‐degrading activity is a definite criterion to introduce fermenting organisms able to decrease histamine content in different food products.