Histamine production by bacilli bacteria, acetic bacteria and yeast isolated from fruit wines

Eleven red wines imported from foreign country and 40 domestic fruit wines, including 15 red wines, 4 white wines, 7 plum wines, and 14 other fruit wines, sold in the supermarkets in Taiwan were purchased and tested to determine the occurrence of biogenic amines and histamine-forming bacteria. The levels of pH, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TA), reducing sugar (RS), total sugar (TS), sulphites, methanol (milligram per liter of pure ethanol), ethanol and Pb in all samples ranged from 3.0 to 4.1, 6.8 to 24.4 °Brix, 0.3 to 1.7 g/100 mL, 0.2 to 17.6 g/100 mL, 1.6 to 28.4 g/100 mL, <2 to 260.5 mg/L, <1 to 2559 mg/L, 5.0 to 15.6 g/100 mL and <1 to 46.2 μg/L, respectively. The levels of TSS, TA, RS, and TS in plum wine samples were significantly higher than those of the other wines samples, whereas the pH value in plum wine samples was lower than that of the other wines samples. The average content for each of the nine biogenic amines in all samples was less than 5.2 mg/L. However, higher levels of histamine and spermine were detected in domestic fruit wine samples than the imported red wine samples. Five histamine-forming isolates isolated from domestic red wine and jackfruit wine, capable of producing 13.0 mg/L to 69.1 mg/L of histamine in trypticase soy broth (TSB) supplemented with 2 g/100 mL l-histidine (TSBH) or MRS broth supplemented with 2 g/100 mL l-histidine (MRSH), were identified as Bacillus pumilus (one strain), Bacillus sp. (two strains) and Acetobacter pasteurianus (one strain) by 16S rDNA sequencing with PCR amplification, and Zygoascus hellenicus var. hellenicus (one strain) by internal transcribed spacer sequencing with PCR amplification. To our knowledge, this is the first report to demonstrate the occurrence of histamine-forming bacilli bacteria, acetic bacteria and yeast in fruit wine.