Study of the effect of marination treatment on garlic bioactive compounds through an innovative HPLC-DAD-MS method for alliin and curcuminoids analysis

Abstract

The pungent aroma of garlic is associated to the formation of organosulfur compounds (OSCs) through alliinase activation. Therefore, to alleviate garlic pungency, food treatment preventing the formation of thiosulfinates (allicin) are needed. This study aims thus, to study the effect of marination on garlic OSCs to assess the efficiency of this process on garlic pungency. This was done through the development of a high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector-mass spectrometry (HPLC-DAD-MS) method. Moreover, different extraction solvents have been tested and the highest recoveries were obtained using methanol with formic acid 0.05%. The developed method was applied on marinated and non-marinated garlic samples. Alliin concentrations were significantly reduced in non-marinated garlic samples (29.9 ± 3.0 μg g−1) respect to marinated samples (296.4 ± 50.2 μg g−1). Furthermore, the chromatogram profiles of fresh garlic samples showed the presence of very high peaks corresponding to allicin and allicin degradation products. This was not observed in marinated samples proving that the marination process can inactivate alliinase. Moreover, the presence of curcuminoids such as curcumin (13.4 ± 2.7 μg g−1) in a garlic preparation made of marinated garlic and turmeric (Curcumaglio®) confirmed that marination could be considered as a process to transfer bioactive compounds in food.