Genotoxicity testing of Maillard reaction products

Since the development of short-term genotoxicity tests such as the Ames assay, the mutagenicity of Maillard reaction products has been tested extensively. Some products have exhibited strong activity. For example, one of the earliest studies demonstrated some mutagenic activity in a dichloromethane extract of a D-glucose/ammonia Maillard model system. Many researchers have attempted to pinpoint the principal chemical(s) of mutagenicity of the Maillard products using various sugar-amino acid browning model systems over last two decades. However, no mutagenic individual Maillard product has been isolated and identified. Nitrite has been also used as a reactant in browning reaction model systems, primarily to investigate the formation of potentially mutagenic or carcinogenic N-nitroso compounds. Recently some potent mutagens isolated from pyrolyzed amino acids or proteins have begun to receive attention as Maillard reaction products.