Abstract:

Changes in biogenic amines and major microflora in vacuum-packed tilapia during cold storage were
investigated to reveal the relationship between biogenic amines formation and microbial growth by correlation analysis with
regression equation. The results showed that, during cold storage, the dominant biogenic amines were putrescine, cadaverine
and histamine while no signficant correlations were observed between microbial growth and biogenic amines such as
tryptamine, phenylethylamine, tyramine, spermidine and spermine while the other biogenic amine indicators showed good
correlation with microbial growth. The diamine and biogenic amines index (BAI) could be used to reflect the change trend of
total biogenic amines effectively which were simple for quality evaluation. Using stepwise regression analysis, a well-fitted
multivariate linear regression equation indicating storage days with respect to biogenic amines and microbial growth was
obtained as follows: storage days = 0.125 histamine＋0.941 anaerobe＋0.022 cadaverine－2.918.

Key words: vacuum pack, tilapia, biogenic amines, microbiology, correlation