Structure-guided unravelling: Phenolic hydroxyls contribute to reduction of acrylamide using multiplex quantitative structure-activity relationship modelling

We reported a structure-activity relationship study on unravelling phenolic hydroxyls instead of alcoholic hydroxyls contribute to the reduction of acrylamide formation by flavonoids. The dose-dependent study shows a close correlation between the number of phenolic hydroxyls of flavonoids and their reduction effects. In view of positions of hydroxyls, the 3′,4′(ortho)-dihydroxyls in B cycle, 3-hydroxyl or hydroxyls of 3-gallate in C cycle, and 5,7(meta)-dihydroxyls in A cycle of flavonoid structures play an important role in the reduction of acrylamide. Flavone C-glycosides are more effective at reducing the formation of acrylamide than flavone O-glycosides when sharing the same aglycone. The current multiplex quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) equations effectively predict the inhibitory rates of acrylamide using selected chemometric parameters (R2: 0.835-0.938). This pioneer study opens a broad understanding on the chemoprevention of acrylamide contaminants on a structural basis.