Interaction of Nitrite with Proteins at Gastric pH

Abstract

THE discovery of volatile N-nitroso compounds¹ in certain foodstuffs² treated with nitrite and/or nitrate has prompted investigation into the conditions likely to give rise to them in food processing and also during digestion. Although other reactions of food components with nitrate and nitrite under physiological conditions are known³, the fate of the total nitrate and nitrite added to foodstuffs as preservatives and that ingested with food has not been established. Our current investigations concern the possibility that interactions of nitrite with certain food components could result in the formation of C-nitroso compounds whose biological behaviour is largely unknown but from the few reports in the literature^4–7 are much weaker carcinogens than the corresponding N-nitroso derivatives. The nitrophenols, however, produced by oxidation of the corresponding nitrosophenol, could affect the energy-yielding processes of the cell by uncoupling oxidative phosphorylation⁶.