Unveil neuroprotective potential of compounds present in coffee melanoidins

• Autor(a) principal: Bonifácio, Maria Inês Borges
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/37651
• topic: Coffee; Melanoidins; Chlorogenic acids; Neurodegenerative diseases; Alzheimer’s disease

Melanoidins are high molecular weight compounds resulting from Maillard reactions, characteristic of thermally processed foods such as bread, beer and coffee. The formation of melanoidins involves free sugars, polysaccharides, proteins and phenolic compounds, which are incorporated into their structure. Phenolic compounds may be chemically bound or adsorbed to high molecular weight compounds, which may have antioxidant and neuroprotective potential. In this work, high molecular weight (melanoidins) and low molecular weight (phenolic compounds adsorbed to melanoidins) fractions from coffee were extracted, fractionated, chemically characterized and evaluated for their antioxidant and neuroprotective effects. This analysis revealed that the melanoidins and phenolic compounds fractions have good antioxidant activity. The low molecular weight compounds showed to decrease the aggregation of β-Amyloid, compatible with neuroprotective activity. However, this activity was not observed in the prevention of neurons death after stimulation with β-Amyloid oligomers. In the future, it will be pertinent to explore other melanoidin-rich food matrices, such as bread and beer, rich in phenolic compounds, which are part of daily eating habits, evaluating their neuroprotective potential as well as their mechanisms of action.