Quantification of Heterocyclic aromatic amines in fried meat by HPTLC/UV-FLD and HPLC/UV-FLD: A comparison of two methods

A recently developed HPTLC/UV-FLD method was compared to the routinely used HPLC/UV-FLD method for the quantification of heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAA) formed at trace levels during the heating process of meat. For formation of these process contaminants under normal cooking conditions, beef patties were fried in a double-contact grill at 230 degrees C for five different frying times and extracted by solid-phase extraction. The HAAs most frequently found, that is, 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP), 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (MelQx), 2-amino3,4,8-trimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline (4,8-DiMelQx), 9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole (norharman), and 1-methyl-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole (harman), were quantified by two chromatographic methods, which were orthogonal to each other (normal versus reversed phase system). Both methods showed a similar performance and good correlation of the results (R-2 between 0.8875 and 0.9751). The comparison of running costs and run time in routine analysis proved HPTLC/UV-FLD to be more economical (factor of 3) and faster (factor of 4) due to its capability of parallel chromatography. The HAA findings calculated by standard addition increased with the heating time from < 1 to 33 mu g/kg related to 3-6 min of frying time. The precision (RSD) was between 7 and 49% (HPTLC) and between 5 and 38% (HPLC) at these very low HAA levels formed.