Forty years of furosine – Forty years of using Maillard reaction products as indicators of the nutritional quality of foods

The Maillard reaction products (MRPs) most widely used as markers of the nutritional quality of foods are furosine, N(epsilon)-carboxymethyllysine (CML), hydroxymethylfurfural, pyrraline, pentosidine and pronyl-lysine. One of the MRPs identified first was furosine, which was quantified in foods 40 years ago as a chemical indicator of the Amadori compound N(epsilon)-fructoselysine. Since then, furosine has gained broad attention by food chemists and biomedical researchers, as its formation upon heat treatment is well characterised. Moreover, it represents the Amadori products from early Maillard reactions in which amino acids react with reducing carbohydrates, resulting in a loss of their availability. This is of importance for the essential amino acid lysine, which is also the limiting amino acid in many proteins. In order to evaluate the nutritional quality of a protein, the concomitant analysis of free - and nutritionally available - lysine and the amount of lysine reacted to form the respective MRP is essential, even for mildly processed foods. The other chemical markers of heat treatment such as CML, pyrraline, pentosidine or pronyl-lysine seem to be useful markers of the advanced stages of Maillard reactions. Compared to the conditions in which furosine is formed, these compounds are generated under more severe conditions of heat treatment. However, the concentrations analysed are significantly lower than those of furosine. Therefore, the nutritional evaluation of a food protein should include not only furosine, but also other chemical markers of heat treatment such as, for example, CML, pyrraline and pentosidine.