Determination of Tetramine in Gastropods (Mollusca) by Ion Chromatography and the Effect of Cooking

Abstract

In order to evaluate poisoning by tetramine by means of analysis of the remaining gastropods in a food-poisoning case, a method for highly sensitive determination of tetramine by ion chromatography (IC) was developed.Tetramine was extracted from gastropods with MeOH, defatted with n-hexane, cleaned up by using an ion pair reagent and a Sep-Pak C18 cartridge, and then subjected to IC. Recoveries of tetramine spiked at 1mg/g in gastropods were more than 90%. The limit of quantitation was 10μg/g. The remaining gastropods (boiled in soy sauce) in this food-poisoning case were Neptunea lamellosa. The contents of tetramine in the gastropods were at the levels of 0.34mg in salivary gland, and 3.1mg in meat. The intake of the patient in this case was supposed to have been about 10mg, which is a sufficient amount to cause tetramine poisoning.The diffusion percentage of tetramine from salivary gland of gastropods (N. polycostata) after boiling (97°C) in water for 10 minutes was 35% to meat, 1% to internal organs and 11% to broth. This result suggested that tetramine poisoning might be suspected on the basis of analysis of broth, etc., if no sample of the salivary gland of remaining gastropods is available.