Detection and quantification of histidine decarboxylating bacteria in fish and relationship to histamine and microbiome

Histamine is the leading cause of food poisoning from fish consumption in the world. Mainly formed by microbial decarboxylation of amino acid histidine. Given the importance of histamine in fish, the quality of fresh and frozen marketed sardines was evaluated for histamine concentration by HPLC-DAD; the identification and quantification of histamine producing bacteria by real time qPCR and composition of the microbiota present in muscle tissue by amplification of the 16S rRNA gene by high throughput sequencing (NGS).