An analytical method for the determination of putrescine (Put), cadaverine (Cad), histamine (Him), tyramine (Tym), and spermidine (Spd) in foods by high performance liquid chromatography was described. The five amines were extracted from fish, fish products, miso, soy sauce, wine and sake with 1% trichloroacetic acid. After 0.1 M sodium octanesulfonate was added to the extract, the solution was passed through a Sep-Pak Vac C18 cartridge column. The column was washed with water, and the amines were eluted with a mixture of methanol - water (6 : 4). The amines in the eluate were converted into the corresponding dansyl amines by reaction with dansyl chloride under alkaline conditions. The dansyl amines were separated on a Cosmosil 5C18-AR column with a mobile phase of acetonitrile-water (65 : 35) and detected with fluorescence detector (Ex. 325 nm, Em. 525 nm). Recoveries of the five amines were more than 79.4%. The detection limit of Put, Cad and Spd in samples were 1 μg/g, Tym was 5 μg/g, and Him was 20 μg/g.
