Chemical and toxicological studies of products resulting from sorbic acid and methylamine interaction in food conditions.

Sorbic acid has a system of conjugated double bonds which makes it able to undergo nucleophilic addition reactions with certain functions. The interactions between sorbic acid and an amine present in the endogenous constituents of food were quantified. We demonstrated the formation of new products and studied the underlying mechanisms using ethyl sorbate and various amines. HPLC, GC, GC-SM and NMR analyses of the reaction mixes enabled the isolation and identification of the products. The addition reactions led, at 20 degrees C, to linear monoadducts and, at 50 degrees C, to cyclic derivatives resulting from double addition. Mutagenesis studies, involving Ames test and genotoxicity studies with HeLa cells and on plasmid DNA, in cyclic interaction products, showed that none of the products studied presented neither mutagenic nor genotoxic activities.