Editorial 109
Editorial
Antioxidant activity of Maillard reaction productsThe Maillard reaction is a non-enzymatic reaction in foods between reducing sugars and amino acids, peptides or proteins; it produces a complex array of compounds referred to as Maillard reaction products (MRP) [1]. The SCOPUS scientific database provides, as of 23 January 2009, a comprehensive list of 1821 articles dealing with MPR; some of them report on the antioxidant activity of MRP. The antioxidant activity of MRP has been investigated in terms of chemical composition of the reacting mixture, characteristics of technological processes (i.e. temperature and heating time), chemical composition of raw materials, and the varying content of MRP in foods. A few studies have even reported on the antioxidant effect of MRP in vivo. Antiradical assays {i.e. 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) radical and 2,2'-Azino-di-[3-ethylbenzthiazoline sulfonate] (ABTS) radical cation tests} as well as lipid oxidation models are typically employed as experimental methods of analysis.The heating of model glucose-lysine mixtures for MRP's generation has been shown to increase the retardation of lipid peroxidation in a linoleic acid emulsion model system [2]. However, the free-radical scavenging activity against DPPH radical decreased during the early stages of the reaction (15 and 30 min of heating). The iron binding affinity of different samples tested with the model system did not correlate with the observed antioxidant properties. According to Billaud et al. [3] -contrary to glucose-proline and glucose-glycine MRP -glucose-lysine and glucose-arginine MRP displayed high scavenging activities. The marked scavenging capacity observed towards DPPH radical for glucose-cysteine mixtures is attributed to the sulfhydryl group of cysteine. The results obtained also suggest that sulfhydryl groups play a role in copper chelating properties. Based upon experiments of Osada and Shibamato [4], extracts prepared from model systems comprising glucose-asparagine, histidine, or tryptophan inhibited hexanal production (i.e. a secondary oxidation product) by 100% at a level of 10 mg/ml of extract over 40 days. Ribose-amino acid model systems generated MRP with a greater antioxidant activity than those of a glucose-amino acid one [5]. With the same sugar or same amino acid model system, antioxidant activity of MRP was negatively related to the final pH, fluorescent intensity, and content of dicarbonyl compounds. This result indicated that high-molecular-weight MRP do not necessarily have a greater antioxidant activity compared to low-molecular-weight MRP. The products of sugar fragmentation play an important role in reducing power development during the Maillard transformation of sugars [6]. Biacetyl, for example, was found to be a key precursor for compounds with antioxidant activity among the fragmentation of sugars.Correlations between melanoidins (i.e. brown, high-molecular-weight heterogeneous polymers that are generated when reducing sugars and amino acids combine t...