Analysis of furanone, pyranone, and new heterocyclic colored compounds from sugar-glycine model Maillard systems.

Aqueous sugar (xylose or glucose)-glycine model systems were refluxed for 2 h with the pH maintained at 5. Reverse-phase HPLC of the total reaction products gave two resolved peaks (one of which was colored) for the xylose system and five resolved peaks (two of which were colored) for the glucose system. The components responsible for these peaks were isolated from the ethyl acetate extracts by semipreparative HPLC. Using mainly NMR, the colored compound from the xylose system was identified as the new 2-acetyl-6-(hydroxymethyl)-5,6-dihydro-4H-pyridinone. The colored compounds from the glucose system were most likely to be two novel cis/trans ring isomers of the related new compound 2-acetyl-6-hydroxy-7-(hydroxymethyl)-1,5,6,7-tetrahydro-4H-azepinone+ ++. These compounds are the first one-ring structures isolated from sugar-amino acid model systems that are reported to be colored. Two of the colorless components of the glucose system were identified, mainly by NMR experiments, as the related compounds 4-hydroxy-2-(hydroxymethyl)-5-methyl-3(2H)-furanone and 2, 3-dihydro-3,5-dihydroxy-6-methyl-4H-pyranone. The remaining compound from the glucose system and the colorless compound from the xylose system were identified as 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural and 4-hydroxy-5-methyl-3(2H)-furanone, respectively.