Lactobacillus parabuchneri produces histamine in refrigerated cheese at a temperature-dependent rate

Abstract

High histamine concentrations in food can cause histamine poisoning. In spite of the cold chain, cheeses with high concentrations of histamine are on the market. In this work, we studied whether Lactobacillus parabuchneri, the microorganism mainly responsible for histamine accumulation in cheese, is able to grow and produce histamine at the usual temperature range of refrigerators. Further, we analysed whether refrigeration is really effective to prevent the accumulation of histamine in different types of cheeses supplemented with histidine and contaminated with L. parabuchneri. Our results showed L. parabuchneri to be able to grow and produce histamine at refrigeration temperatures. Moreover, L. parabuchneri produced toxic histamine concentrations in refrigerated cheeses from only 14 days. The results obtained in this work show that in the presence of L. parabuchneri, refrigeration delays but does not prevent the accumulation of toxic histamine levels in cheese.