Fish Spoilage Detectors: A New Way to Spot Biogenic Amines

Biogenic amines (BAs) are harmful substances found in fish products. They're linked to fish spoilage and pose a threat to food safety. Traditional methods to detect BAs are costly, complicated, and time-consuming. In a recent study, scientists created a new tool called a nanozyme-based sensor array. This array uses tiny metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that behave like enzymes. These MOFs are made of copper, cerium, and manganese, and they're great at mimicking the activity of peroxidases.

When different BAs interact with these MOFs, they change their catalytic properties in unique ways. This change creates a distinct color pattern, like a fingerprint. This allows the sensor array to easily tell apart four types of BAs over a wide range of concentrations (10-1000 μM). It can even detect histamine at very low levels, down to 1 μM, with a detection limit of 4. 28 μM within 20 minutes. The sensor array works well with mixtures of BAs, target BAs, interfering substances, and BAs in real fish samples. It can also help determine the freshness of fish samples. This new method could be a game-changer for food safety and public health.

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