Alpha-dicarbonyl compounds reactivity in presence of digestive enzymes and biological activities of reaction products

Alpha-dicarbonyl compounds such as glyoxal (G), methyglyoxal (MG), and diacetyl (D), are -oxo aldehydes, highly reactive intermediates that can be formed in different types of foods, especially after heat treatment and fermentation. The presence of these compounds in foods raises important questions because of their toxicological profile in fact G and MG have shown mutagenic and carcinogenic properties in vitro. In addition, these compounds are known to participate in vivo in the processes of protein glycation involved in the development of various chronic-degenerative diseases . In view of the above mentioned, we performed in vitro studies to verify a possible influence of digestive enzymes on free alpha-dicarbonyl compound concentration. At this purpose standard solutions of each compound and their mixture and three different foods were submitted to digestive enzymes treatment quantifying G, MG, and D before and after digestion, using validated HPLC-DAD methods . The obtained results have shown as the digestive process may affect the detectable concentrations of these compounds even though in a very different way depending on the specific considered compound but also, and above all, on the food matrix in which the a-dicarbonyl compounds occur. The research continues in order to study both the reactivity of these compounds in presence of other food matrices and the biological activity of the adducts formed in alpha-dicarbonyl compounds and digestive enzymes reactions.