Citral: A potent inhibitor of advanced glycation end products

Xin Yang; Siyu Wei; Kangdi Hou; Yumeng Wei; Mengyi Lin; Xiaosong Hu; Fang Chen; Yuchen Zhu

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.141247

Citral: A potent inhibitor of advanced glycation end products

Food Chem. 2024 Sep 11;463(Pt 3):141247. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.141247. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Xin Yang¹, Siyu Wei¹, Kangdi Hou¹, Yumeng Wei¹, Mengyi Lin¹, Xiaosong Hu¹, Fang Chen¹, Yuchen Zhu²

Affiliations

¹ College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, National Engineering Research Centre for Fruits and Vegetables Processing, Key Laboratory of Storage and Processing of Fruits and Vegetables, Ministry of Agriculture, Engineering Research Centre for Fruits and Vegetables Processing, Ministry of Education, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China.
² College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, National Engineering Research Centre for Fruits and Vegetables Processing, Key Laboratory of Storage and Processing of Fruits and Vegetables, Ministry of Agriculture, Engineering Research Centre for Fruits and Vegetables Processing, Ministry of Education, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China. Electronic address: zhuyuchen@cau.edu.cn.

PMID: 39305645
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.141247

Abstract

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which are produced during food processing, pose health risks to humans. This study found that citral (Cit) effectively inhibited the formation of both fluorescent and non-fluorescent AGEs in the bovine serum albumin (BSA)-glucose (Glc) system. Cit achieved an average inhibition rate of over 80 % for fluorescent AGEs and reduced the levels of N-ε-carboxymethyllysine (CML) and N-ε-carboxyethyllysine (CEL) by up to 45.85 % and 59.32 %, respectively. The comprehensive characterizations and high-resolution mass spectrometry analysis demonstrated that the carbonyl group and CC group present on Cit could compete with Glc for the amino groups on BSA, thereby reducing the formation of AGEs. Additionally, the cytotoxicity assay demonstrated that the BSA-Cit adducts were non-toxic. This research indicated that Cit was a potent and safe inhibitor of AGEs.

Keywords: Advanced glycation end products; Citral; Cytotoxicity; Inhibition mechanism.