Linguiça is a highly popular and appreciated traditional Portuguese dry fermented sausage. Its
production involves a ripening step, which provides favorable conditions for biogenic amines formation
due to microbial growth, acidification and proteolysis. The levels of biogenic amines in dry-fermented
sausages are highly dependent on the type of product, producer and could even vary from batch to
batch. The microbiological quality of raw materials, technological process and growth/type of microbial
flora are some factors that may explain this variability. To the authors’ best knowledge, only few studies
focused on the quantification of biogenic amines in Portuguese traditional sausages, reporting variable
levels of accumulation, being the tyramine the most abundant followed by putrescine and cadaverine.
Starter cultures have been used aiming to prevent or reduce the formation of biogenic amines during the
manufacture of dry-fermented sausages. Based on the results reported in the literature, the use of starter
cultures may reduce or not the biogenic amines accumulation during the fermentation of sausages.
In this work, it was evaluated the influence of one commercial starter culture (Texel®ELCE Br, Danisco) on
biogenic amine accumulation during manufacture process and storage. Parameters such as pH value,
water activity and microbial counts were also assessed. In general the results pointed out that the starter
culture inhibited the accumulation of biogenic amines (putrescine, cadaverine and tyramine) as well as
the growth of S. aureus and Enterobacterias. This inhibitory effect was clear during ripening and storage
periods. On the other hand the starter culture did not have a significant effect on spermidine and
spermine concentrations.We acknowledge to POCI-01–0145-FEDER-006984–LSRE-LCM, Project UID/QUI/00616/2013 – CQ-VR, UID/AGR/00690/2013 – CIMO and UID/BIA/04050/2013 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007569) all funded by FEDER-COMPETE2020 and by FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio