Metabolism of hop-derived bitter acids

In this study, in vitro metabolism of hop-derived bitter acids was investigated. Besides their well-known use as bitter compounds in beer, in several studies, bioactive properties have been related to these types of molecules. However, scientific data on the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion aspects of these compounds are limited. More specific, in this study, α-acids, β-acids, and iso-α-acids were incubated with rabbit microsomes, and fractions were subjected to LC-MS/MS analysis for identification of oxidative biotransformation products. Metabolism of β-acids was mainly characterized by conversion into hulupones and the formation of a series of tricyclic oxygenated products. The most important metabolites of α-acids were identified as humulinones and hulupones. Iso-α-acids were found to be primarly metabolized into cis- and trans-humulinic acids, next to oxidized alloiso-α-acids. Interestingly, the phase I metabolites were highly similar to the oxidative degradation products in beer. These findings show a first insight into the metabolites of hop-derived bitter acids and could have important practical implications in the bioavailability aspects of these compounds, following ingestion of hop-based food products and nutraceuticals.