Lactic acid bacterial exopolysaccharides strongly bind histamine and can potentially be used to remove histamine contamination in food.

The symptoms of foodborne histamine poisoning are similar to those of IgE-mediated food allergies. In this study, we investigated the histamine-binding capacity of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) strains as potential preventive agents against histamine poisoning. Histamine biosorption capacity was determined for 16 LAB strains. TOKAI 51 m, TOKAI 65 m, TOKAI 111 m and TOKAI 759 m showed especially high biosorption rates and reached saturation within 30 min. Adsorption isotherms showed better conformance to the Freundlich model than to the Langmuir model. Analyses after heat, periodic acid and guanidine hydrochloride treatments suggested that histamine was bound to the bacterial cell surface. HPLC analysis revealed that exopolysaccharides produced by TOKAI 65 m strongly bound to histamine. In the detachment test with 1 mol l HCl solution, the dissociation rate of histamine for TOKAI 65 m was <10 %. This strain is presumably a suitable candidate for use against histamine poisoning.