The antimicrobial activities of the cinnamaldehyde adducts with amino acids

Cinnamaldehyde is a well-established natural antimicrobial compound. It is probable for cinnamaldehyde to react with amino acid forming Schiff base adduct in real food system. In this paper, 9 such kind of adducts were prepared by the direct reaction of amino acids with cinnamaldehyde at room temperature. Their antimicrobial activities against Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae were evaluated with benzoic acid as a reference. The adducts showed a dose-dependent activities against the three microbial strains. Both cinnamaldehyde and their adducts were more active against B. subtilis than on E. coli, and their antimicrobial activities were higher at lower pH. Both cinnamaldehyde and its adducts were more active than benzoic acid at the same conditions. The adduct compound A was non-toxic by primary oral acute toxicity study in mice. However, in situ effect of the adduct compound A against E. coli was a little lower than cinnamaldehyde in fish meat. This paper for the first time showed that the cinnamaldehyde adducts with amino acids had similar strong antimicrobial activities as cinnamaldehyde, which may provide alternatives to cinnamaldehyde in food to avoid the strong unacceptable odor of cinnamaldehyde.