Content of biologically active polyamines in livers of cattle, pigs and chickens after animal slaughter

Dietary polyamines putrescine (PUT), spermidine (SPD) and spermine (SPM) participate in an array of important human physiological roles, including tumour growth. Physicians and dieticians thus need reliable information on polyamine contents in foods. However, data for livers are lacking. We determined therefore the content of these polyamines 24 h after slaughter in livers of young bulls, cows, pigs and chicken in 58, 19, 36 and 38 samples, respectively. Polyamines were determined as N-benzamides by micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography. Mean PUT contents about 25 mg kg−1 were found in cattle livers, while very low or negligible contents were determined in livers of the other animals. Extremely high mean SPD contents of 122 and 161 mg kg−1 were found in livers of bulls and cows, respectively and mean levels of 32 and 57 mg kg−1 in livers of pigs and chicken. An opposite relation was observed for SPM. Its mean contents were 43, 35, 115 and 120 mg kg−1 for bulls, cows, pigs and chicken livers, respectively. Thus, livers of the tested animal species belong among foods with the highest polyamine contents. However, the contents ranged very widely, that makes application of the results for the control of human nutrition rather difficult. Polyamine contents in bovine blood were found to be below the detection limits of 2.1, 1.0 and 1.4 mg kg−1 for PUT, SPD and SPM, respectively. Thus, the blood content did not contribute to the substantial polyamine contents in bovine liver found in this study.