Correspondence analysis of antioxidant activity and UV-Vis absorbance of Maillard reaction products as related to reactants

In this study, the antioxidant activity (including ABTS radical scavenging activity and reducing power) and UV-Vis spectra of Maillard reaction products (MRPs) prepared from four sugars (glucose/fructose/xylose/ribose) and twenty amino acids were studied. The effects of reactants on the antioxidant activity and UV-Vis absorbance of MRPs were investigated using correspondence analysis, which revealed that MRPs from fructose-amino acid models showed the similar UV-Vis absorbance and antioxidant activity with MRPs from glucose-amino acid models, MRPs from ribose-amino acid models showed the similar UV-Vis absorbance and antioxidant activity with MRPs from xylose-amino acid models, while there was significant difference between MRPs from hexose (glucose and fructose)-amino acid models and MRPs from pentose (ribose and xylose)-amino acid models, especially for methionine and valine. The correlation analysis demonstrated that ABTS radical scavenging activity showed the highest linearity (r = 0.831) with UV absorbance at 280 nm while reducing power showed the highest linearity (r = 0.689) with UV absorbance at 355 nm, indicating that different antioxidant properties of MRPs might derive from different compounds. Besides, as compared with cysteine, tyrosine and tryptophan showed a certain ABTS radical scavenging activity in spite of little reducing power.

► Eighty model systems were studied in UV-Vis spectra and antioxidant activity. ► Correspondence analysis was applied to study the effect of reactants. ► There was correlation between antioxidant activity and UV absorbance in MRPs. ► Tyrosine and tryptophan showed a certain ABTS radical scavenging activity.