Maillard Reaction Products (MRPs) are indicators for the heat treatment of food, as well as markers of nutritional quality. They also appear naturally in the human body as so-called Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs). As such, they are indicators for body health and disease processes, including inflammation, diabetes, cancer, and ageing. Consequently, AGEs gained broad attention in cosmetics, biochemistry, food, and pharmaceutical applications. Thus, the correct product handling is of crucial importance for reliable and reproducible results.

As an example, Poojary et al. have developed a validated UHPLC-MS/MS method for the simultaneous identification and quantification of 15 different Advanced Glycation End Products, as well as furosine and various other related compounds (protein-derived crosslinks and certain amino acids). This novel method is highly sensitive (LOD and LOQ values in the ng/mL range), and is applicable for milk samples, for different varieties of meat, as well as for bovine plasma and perfusion liquid. All 25 AGE standards and internal standards used in this publication were purchased from Iris Biotech.

Maillard Reaction Products can be sticky oils or foamy powders. In order to improve the handling of these products, we provide them, depending on the respective characteristics, as free base, HCl, TFA or acetate salt. These salts are mainly powders, which can e.g. be weighed out more readily. Please be aware, that for this reason, the net content of the compound is crucial for your considerations/calculations/quantifications. It is determined for most of the products by elemental analysis and stated on the certificate of analysis.

Lyophilized Maillard reaction products should be stored desiccated at -20°C. Before opening a vial, ensure that it has equilibrated to room temperature. When the product is not a weighable powder or foam, it is best reconstituted directly from the bottle. First try to dissolve in a small volume of pure water. If it does not dissolve easily, sonication may help. Once in solution, the buffer for the experiment can be added. In the case of some very hydrophobic or neutral compounds, polar organic solvents such as DMSO or DMF can be used. These should be added in a stepwise fashion until the compound has dissolved, after which water or buffer may be added until the desired concentration is reached.

Reconstituted products should be used up as soon as possible to avoid degradation in solution. If this is not possible, we recommend dividing the solution in aliquots corresponding to the amount needed for one experiment. These aliquots should then be re-lyophilized and stored as before. Unused solutions should be stored frozen at -20°C or lower for limited periods of time. We advise against repeated freeze-thaw cycles.

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References:

Liquid chromatography quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometry for the simultaneous analysis of advanced glycation end products and protein-derived cross-links in food and biological matrices; M. M. Poojary, W. Zhang, I. Greco, C. De Gobba, K. Olsen, M. N. Lund; J Chromatogr A 2020; 1615: 460767. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2019.460767.