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Rapid Colorimetric Method To Detect Indole in Shrimp With Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry Confirmation
Rapid Colorimetric Method To Detect Indole in Shrimp With Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry Confirmation
Rapid Colorimetric Method To Detect Indole in Shrimp With Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry Confirmation
ABSTRACT: With increased public concern over the freshness and quality of seafood, more pressure is being applied
to the industry to provide better products in the market place. Simple, fast, and inexpensive tests are needed to assess
seafood quality. Seafood decomposition can be characterized by biogenic amine formation, such as the formation
of indole in shrimp. We have developed a rapid colorimetric method using 4-(dimethylamino)benzaldehyde method
that detects indole in decomposing shrimp. This method, as well as the confirmatory gas chromatography/mass
spectrometry (GC/MS) method, is centered on a simple toluene extraction technique that recovers indole with high
efficiency. Excellent agreement was obtained between the colorimetric and GC/MS quantitative results for shrimp
decomposition.
Keywords: colorimetry, indole, biogenic amines, 4-(dimethylamino) benzaldehyde, shrimp
(Harmon 2001), liquid chromatography (Mattivi and others 1999), dimethylindole (2,3MI), 4-(dimethylamino)benzaldehyde (DMAB),
fluorometry (Jie and others 1996), and colorimetry (references given and trichloroacetic acid (TCA) were purchased from Aldrich (Mil-
below). Of these methods, only colorimetry offers instrumentation waukee, Wis., U.S.A.). Toluene, methanol (MeOH), and concentrat-
(spectrophotometer, colorimeter) that is easy to use, small, portable, ed hydrochloric acid (HCl) were purchased from J.T. Baker (Phil-
and comparatively affordable. A simple colorimetric method for in- lipsburg, N.J., U.S.A.). A 5 lb block of raw, unshelled gulf coast fresh
dole could allow seafood regulators, inspectors, and wholesalers to frozen shrimp was purchased from a local retailer (Little Rock, Ark.,
rapidly establish shrimp quality before it reaches the consumer. U.S.A.). The shrimp contained sodium bisulfite as a preservative,
There are several colorimetric methods available for indole anal- and the quality of the shrimp was Class 1 at the beginning of the
1548 JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE—Vol. 68, Nr. 4, 2003 © 2003 Institute of Food Technologists
Further reproduction prohibited without permission
Indole colorimetry of shrimp . . .
experiment and Class 3 at the end. Indole standards in toluene ion for indole (M+, m/z 117) and the internal standard 2MI (M–1
were made in the 0.1 to 25 g/mL concentration range for GC/MS ion, m/z 130). A qualifier ion (M–HCN ion, m/z 103) (Porter 1985)
calibration; these standards were diluted by a factor of 25 for colo- was monitored for 2MI so peak purity could be established. Indole
rimetric calibration. and 2MI had retention times of 5.35 and 6.37 min, respectively. The
response of the Saturn 4D GC/MS was calibrated against 7 indole
Indole extraction procedure standards ranging from 0.1 to 25 g/mL indole using 2MI as the
Indole was extracted from shrimp by grinding 20 g shrimp with internal standard. The GC/MS response as a function of indole
50 mL toluene and 5 mL 5% TCA for 1 min. The purée was centri- concentration was linear (data not shown), and Eq. 1 gives the
fuged with a Jouan CR 422 centrifuge for 30 min at 3500 rpm best-fit line (R2 = 0.996) in terms of indole (I), 2MI, and concentra-
(2534 × g) to separate the toluene from the shrimp pulp. The tolu- tion (C). The lower limit of detection for the method is 100 ppb (0.1
ene layer was decanted and filtered through a 0.45 m syringe filter g/mL); the upper limit of detection was not determined because
into a beaker containing anhydrous Na2SO4 (Aldrich). it far exceeded the amount of indole in fully decomposed shrimp.
Recovery experiments
The recovery of indole from shrimp was established by spiking Eq. 1
20 g shrimp with 10 L of 10 mg/mL indole (MeOH as solvent) prior
to the blending of the shrimp. The extract was subjected to GC/MS Figure 1 shows a chromatogram of a shrimp sample spiked with
and colorimetric analyses, and the amount of indole recovered and 100 g indole. Using the extraction procedure detailed in the exper-
detected was determined. Unadulterated shrimp were analyzed as imental section, an average of 92.3 ± 4.3 g indole was recovered
a control in both methods. For recovery, 4 shrimp samples were from shrimp spiked with indole before the blending of the shrimp.
spiked with indole and analyzed in triplicate with colorimetry and The recovery of indole was accounted for in all calculations. The
GC/MS. high extraction efficiency shows the demonstrated solubility of
indole in toluene rather than the shrimp pulp/TCA/MeOH mixture.
Shrimp decomposition Toluene readily extracts indole because of the aromaticity and sim-
Thawed, raw shrimp were decomposed at both room (18 °C) and ilarity of the molecules.
low (7 °C) temperatures, and the shrimp were sampled every 12 to
24 h for 5 d. The pH of selected samples was measured with DUAL Colorimetric calibration and derivatization
TINT Universal Indicator Paper ( J.T. Baker, Phillipsburg, N.J., The absorbance response of the Hach DR/2000 spectrophotom-
U.S.A.). Colorimetric and GC/MS analyses of the samples were eter was calibrated against 2 concentration ranges of indole. The
performed in quadruplicate and duplicate, respectively, and then first range tested matched that used for GC/MS calibration (0.1 to
the corresponding results were averaged. 25 g/mL) and the results are shown in Figure 2. The absorbance
relationship to the indole concentration is clearly nonlinear
Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (R2 = 0.732) due the saturation of the detector by the deeply col-
Measurements were made in full scan mode with a Varian Sat- ored solutions. Similar reports of non-linearity in calibration curves
urn 4D GC/MS ion trap spectrometer equipped with a DB5-MS using analogous concentration ranges have appeared in the liter-
column (30 m length × 0.25 mm I.D. narrowbore × 0.25 m film ature (Cheuk and Finne 1981; Tantillo and other 1996), although
thickness) purchased from J&W Scientific (Folsom, Calif., U.S.A.). the nonlinearity is not as severe as that just presented.
Column temperature: programmed at 13.4 °C/min from 120 to
240 °C, injection temperature: programmed at 200 °C/min from
110 to 250 °C, injection volume: 0.5 L, ion-source temperature:
250 °C, ionizing voltage: 70 eV, linear flow: 1 mL/min through col-
umn. The internal standard used was 2MI; 30 L of a 3 mg/mL stan-
dard in toluene was added to 10 mL of shrimp extract. Unadulter-
ated shrimp were used as a control in the analyses.
Colorimetry
The derivatizing reagent used in the colorimetric method con-
sisted of 1.25 g DMAB in 100 mL MeOH and 25.6 mL concentrated
HCl (Snell and Snell 1967). In the procedure, 400 L shrimp extract
was diluted to 10 mL with toluene, after which 2 mL was vortexed for
15 min with 2 mL derivatizing reagent. The resulting mixture was
centrifuged for 6 min at 3500 rpm to separate the MeOH and tolu-
ene layers. The absorbance of the MeOH (bottom) layer was mea-
sured with a Hach DR/2000 spectrophotometer at 567 nm. Unadul-
terated shrimp were used as the blank for the absorbance
Sensory and Nutritive Qualities of Food
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Indole colorimetry of shrimp . . .
It was apparent in the first calibration that the 3 lowest concen- Table 1—Comparison of GC/MS and Colorimetric results
trations (0.1, 0.5, 1 g/mL) formed a straight line (R2 = 0.998). Ac- for the decomposition of shrimp over 5 d at 18 °C
cordingly, the original 7 indole standards (0.1 to 25 g/mL) were Temperature (°C) Time (d) GC/MS a Colorimetry a
diluted by a factor of 25 so that the maximum concentration tested 7 0 N/Db N/D
was 1 g/mL. The diluted standards gave a linear absorbance re- 2 N/D N/D
sponse (data not shown), and Eq. 2 gives the best-fit line 2.5 N/D N/D
(R2 = 0.960) in terms of diluted concentration (CD) and absorbance 3 N/D N/D
5 N/D N/D
(A). Equation 3 relates the diluted concentration (CD) to the origi-
nal concentration (C) of the standard or extract. The detection limits 18 0 N/D N/D
2 N/D N/D
for this colorimetric method are 0.002 and 1 g/mL.
2.5c 2.2 ± 0.7 2.1 ± 0.9
3c 12.5 ± 0.0 12.1 ± 0.2
Eq. 2 5c 26.8 ± 6.2 27.0 ± 6.5
a Concentration in the units of g indole/g shrimp, corrected for recovery
b N/D: Indole levels not detectable
c Shrimp sample Class 3 in quality
Eq. 3
1550 JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE—Vol. 68, Nr. 4, 2003 JFS is available in searchable form at www.ift.org
Indole colorimetry of shrimp . . .
er. This may result from the toluene extraction efficiency compared Table 2—Absorbance at 567 nm of several derivatized in-
to that of steam distillation or methanol extraction. doles
Compound Absorbance Molar absorptivity Color
Production of indole DMAB 0.000 67 Pale yellow
Indole is produced enzymatically by the metabolism of proteins Indole 0.116 27094 Light pink
by bacteria. Specifically, proteolytic bacteria hydrolyze proteins 2-Methylindole 0.081 18912 Pink
into free amino acids using proteinase and peptidase enzymes. Skatole 0.006 1475 Pale yellowa
2,3-Dimethylindole 0.000 67a Pale yellowa
Free Trp residues then undergo decarboxylation and deamination
Shrimp Extract 0.062 27094 b Pale pink
reactions, which are catalyzed by the bacterial enzyme tryptopha- a Same as the DMAB blank
nase, to produce indole and indole-containing molecules. A simple b Same as indole
multi-step pathway for Trp degradation is illustrated in Figure 4
(Vederas and others 1978; Hammond and Carlson 1980); indole
and skatole are the final products in this pathway. However, path-
ways more complex than that in Figure 4 have been reported (Har- such as Pseudomonas, Shawenella, Vibrios, and Proteus function
row 1950; Yokoyama and Carlson 1974; Marklová 1999). well under the conditions of temperature and pH (Jacobs and Ger-
The GC/MS and colorimetric data for shrimp decomposition stein 1960; Fieger and Novak 1961; Smith and others 1984; Gram
suggest that indole is the only indolic decomposition product in the and Huss 1996; Godinho and D’Souza 2000).
shrimp extract. Similar reports of indole formation with no detect-
able intermediates have appeared in the literature (Thimann 1955; Derivatization of indoles by DMAB
Jensen and others 1995). Jensen and others (1995) reported that DMAB is a very sensitive reagent that is used to detect trace
indole (85%) and skatole (15%) are detectable decomposition prod- amounts of indole, and a possible reaction mechanism is given in
ucts in entire male pig feces at pH 8. Thus, the conversion of Trp Figure 6 (Veveris and others 1988). The absence of skatole makes
into indole is the dominant branch of the degradation pathway the direct colorimetric analysis of indole simpler, but the coderiva-
(Figure 4), in which Trp breaks down into indole, pyruvate, and tization of skatole is not a deterrent to colorimetry because both
ammonia by the mechanism given in Figure 5 (Thimann 1955; Ved- molecules are a measure of quality.
eras and others 1978). The reactivity of DMAB towards indole compared with other
We measured the pH of the least (d 0) and most (d 5) decom- molecules containing the indole moiety was established by observ-
posed shrimp samples and both had a pH of 9 or higher. This results ing the color and absorbance of the derivatized products. Indole,
from the high protein and low carbohydrate content in the shrimp 2MI, skatole, and 2,3MI were reacted with DMAB under the same
tissue (Gram and Huss 1996); consequently, proteins and amino reaction conditions. Each indole had a concentration of 0.5 g/mL
acids are broken down in large quantities during decomposition, after a 25-fold dilution from 12.5 g/mL, which is a concentration of
producing significant amounts of ammonia (Thimann 1955). The indole higher than that found in the most rotten shrimp (d 5). The
pH 9 environment seems sufficient to inhibit the skatole branch of absorbance response of the derivatized indoles is shown in Figure
the pathway, allowing indole to be produced exclusively. Bacteria 7, and the data clearly indicates that indole and 2MI reacted with
DMAB to form colored products that strongly absorbed light be-
tween 500 and 600 nm. Derivatized skatole produced a negligible
absorbance response relative to the background at this concentra-
tion, as did 2,3MI. Table 2 summarizes the absorbance and molar
absorptivities (e) of each derivatized indole at 567 nm. Included in
Figure 4—Decomposition pathways of tryptophan into in- Figure 5—Breakdown of Trp into indole, pyruvate, and NH3
dole and skatole (Vederas and others 1978; Hammond and at alkaline pH (Thimann 1955; Vederas and others 1978).
Carlson 1980) Final products are underlined.
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Indole colorimetry of shrimp . . .
Conclusion
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13. NCTR Road, Jefferson, AR, 72079. Author Takenaka is with the Brown &
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Morrisville, NC 27560. Direct inquiries to author Miller (E-mail:
tryptophan and other indoles in must and wine by high-performance liquid
chromatography with fluorescence detection. J Chromagr A 855:227-35.
dmiller@nctr.fda.gov).
JFS is available in searchable form at www.ift.org Vol. 68, Nr. 4, 2003—JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE 1553