Biogenic amines are biological metabolites present in foods either as natural products or after fermentation, decay microbial contamination, decomposition or putrefaction processes. The main biogenic amines are: putrescine, tyramine, cadaverine, 2-phenylethylamine, histamine, spermidine and spermine. The precence of these compounds in food indicates a high level of bacterial contamination and a high degree of spoilage. The determination of biogenic amines is of the utmost importance to assure that the fish sauce can be eaten without health risk. A practical micellar liquid chromatography has been developed for the selective measurement of the levels of each biogenic amine in anchovy sauce, after derivatization with 3,5 dinitrobenzoyl chloride. The common conditions of the method were: stationary phase, C18 column (125 × 4.6 mm; 5 mm particle size); mobile phase containing SDS/organic modifier buffered at pH 7; detection set at 260 nm; flow-rate 1 mL/min running under isocratic mode at room temperature. The difference was the composition of the mobile phase (SDS amount, organic modifier nature and concentration) and the optimization  performed using an interpretative model by testing only five mobile phases. Validatetion according FDA guideline was performed: linearity (r² > 0.999), detection and quantification limits, intra- and interday precision (<4.2 %) and accuracy (88.6–103.7%), and robustness (< 4.8%). The proposed method was successfully applied to the monitorization of biogenic amines in unsalted and salted fish sauce samples. According to the results, salting was an useful technique to avoid anchovy sauce spoilage. 

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the projects from Fundació Caixa Castelló-Bancaixa P1-1B2006-12 and Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (MEC) CTQ 200764473/BQU.