The paper reports on the development of an accurate hydrophilic liquid interaction chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HILIC-MS/MS) based stable isotope dilution analysis for the simultaneous quantitation of the food-derived bioactive pyridines trigonelline, nicotinic acid, nicotinamide, and N-methylpyridinium, as well as their key metabolites nicotinamide-N-oxide, N-methylnicotinamide, N-methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxamide, N-methyl-4-pyridone-5-carboxamide, and N-methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxylic acid in human plasma and urine. Precision of the stable isotope dilution analysis (SIDA) was 1.9% and 11.9% relative standard deviation (n = 6), and accuracy was between 92.4% and 113.0%. The lower limit of quantitation (LLOQ) was 50 fmol (10 pmol/mL) injected onto the column for all analytes with the exception of N-methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxylic acid and N-methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxamide, for which an LLOQ of 100 fmol (20 pmol/mL) was found. The method was applied to monitor the plasma appearance and urinary excretion and to determine pharmacokinetic parameters of the bioactive pyridines as well as their metabolites in a clinical human intervention study with healthy volunteers (six women, seven men) after oral administration of 350 mL of a standard coffee beverage. Trigonelline plasma levels increased from 160 nmol/L to maximum concentrations of 5479 (males) or 6547 nmol/L (females), and N-methylpyridinium plasma levels raised from virtually complete absence to maximum values of 777 (females) or 804 nmol/L (males) within 2-3 and 1-2 h after coffee consumption, respectively. The high plasma levels of N-methylpyridinium found after coffee consumption clearly demonstrate for the first time that this cation is entering the vascular system, which is the prerequisite for biological in vivo effects claimed for that compound. In contrast, the coffee intervention did not significantly influence the plasma concentrations of N-methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxamide and N-methyl-4-pyridone-5-carboxamide, the major niacin metabolites. Within 8 h after coffee intervention, an urinary excretion of 57.4 +/- 6.9% of trigonelline and 69.1 +/- 6.2% of N-methylpyridinium was found for the male volunteers, whereas females excreted slightly less with 46.2 +/- 7.4% and 61.9 +/- 12.2% of these pyridines.

Although bisacetylenic oxylipins have been demonstrated to exhibit diverse biological activities, the chemical structures of many representatives of this class of phytochemicals still remain elusive. As carrots play an important role in our daily diet and are known as a source of bisacetylenes, an extract made from Daucus carota L. was screened for bisacetylenic oxylipins, and, after isolation, their structures were determined by means of LC-MS and 1D/2D NMR spectroscopy. Besides the previously reported falcarinol, falcarindiol, and falcarindiol 3-acetate, nine additional bisacetylenes were identified, among which six derivatives are reported for the first time in literature and three compounds were previously not identified in carrots. To determine the absolute stereochemistry of falcarindiol in carrots, the (3R,8R)-, (3R,8S)-, (3S,8R)-, and (3S,8S)-stereoisomers of falcarindiol were synthesized according to a novel 10-step total synthesis involving a Cadiot-Chodkiewicz cross-coupling reaction of (S)- and (R)-trimethylsilanyl-4-dodecen-1-yn-3-ol and (R)- and (S)-5-bromo-1-penten-4-yn-3-ol, respectively. Comparative chiral HPLC analysis of the synthetic stereoisomers with the isolated phytochemical led to the unequivocal assignment of the (Z)-(3R,8S)-configuration for falcarindiol in carrot extracts from Daucus carota L.

In order to reinvestigate the key molecules inducing bitter off-taste of carrots ( Daucus carota L.), a sensory-guided fractionation approach was applied to bitter carrot extracts. Besides the previously reported bitter compounds, 6-methoxymellein (1), falcarindiol (2), falcarinol (3), and falcarindiol-3-acetate (4), the following compounds were identified for the first time as bitter compounds in carrots with low bitter recognition thresholds between 8 and 47 micromol/L: vaginatin (5), isovaginatin (6), 2-epilaserine oxide (7), laserine oxide (8), laserine (14), 2-epilaserine (15), 6,8-O-ditigloyl- (9), 6-O-angeloyl-, 8-O-tigloyl- (10), 6-O-tigloyl-, 8-O-angeloyl- (11), and 6-, 8-O-diangeloyl-6 ss,8alpha,11-trihydroxygermacra-1(10) E,4 E-diene (12), as well as 8-O-angeloyl-tovarol (13) and alpha-angeloyloxy-latifolone (16). Among these bitter molecules, compounds 9, 10, 13, and 16 were not previously identified in carrots and compounds 6, 11, and 12 were yet not reported in the literature.