Abstract: The contamination status of cold resistant Morganella psychrotolerans in commercially available aquatic products was investigated, and the generation of histamine by its isolates was explored. A total of 100 samples of commercially available fish from Guangdong province were surveyed. The results revealed a widespread distribution of M. psychrotolerans with a contamination rate of 34%. The contamination rates for red-fleshed and white-fleshed fish were 35.9% and 27.3%, respectively. Specifically, the mackerel samples had a contamination rate of 38.24%, and the tuna samples had a contamination rate of 29.41% among all positive samples. Sixteen strains of M. psychrotolerans were isolated from the positive samples, and all isolates produced histamine levels exceeding 1 000 mg/L after 48 h incubation at 20 ℃. Notably, isolate 1 showed higher histamine-producing capacity than the type strain. Although the two strains exhibited no significant differences in growth curves at varying temperatures (4 and 20 ℃), their histamine-producing capacities were different. After 10 days of culture at 4 ℃, histamine production was higher by isolate 1 than the type strain, while the opposite result was observed after 60 h of culture at 20 ℃. These findings offer crucial theoretical support for addressing the problem of histamine accumulation in cold chain aquatic products.

Key words: Morganella psychrotolerans; histamine formation; fish; most probable number-polymerase chain reaction; contamination status