Direct Trapping of Acrylamide as a Key Mechanism for Niacin’s Inhibitory Activity in Carcinogenic Acrylamide Formation

The inhibitory mechanism of niacin, which was found in our previous study to effectively reduce acrylamide (AA) formation in both chemical models and fried potato strips, was investigated in the present study. Maillard chemical models containing the amino acid asparagine and glucose with or without niacin were closely examined by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. Comparison of the chemical profiles revealed two additional peaks in models where niacin was present together with the AA precursors, which thus suggests the formation of compounds from reactions between niacin and other chemical species in the model systems. The predicted molecular weights of these two analytes were consistent with adducts formed between niacin and asparagine or AA, respectively. The niacin−acrylamide adduct was also detected in fried potato strips pretreated with niacin. In addition, the niacin−acrylamide adduct was subsequently purified and characterized by NMR spectroscopy as 1-propanamide-3-carboxy pyridinium, a novel compound that has never been reported previously. Furthermore, incubation of niacin with AA in simulated physiological conditions showed that niacin was capable of significantly reducing the level of AA. Findings from this study suggest that niacin not only has the potential to remove AA from food products during heat treatment by directly trapping it but also is a potential agent to scavenge AA in human body.