The odor of human breast milk after ingestion of raw garlic at food-relevant concentrations by breastfeeding mothers was investigated for the first time chemo-analytically using gas chromatography−mass spectrometry/olfactometry (GC-MS/O), as well as sensorially using a trained human sensory panel. Sensory evaluation revealed a clear garlic/cabbage-like odor that appeared in breast milk about 2.5 h after consumption of garlic. GC-MS/O analyses confirmed the occurrence of garlic-derived metabolites in breast milk, namely allyl methyl sulfide (AMS), allyl methyl sulfoxide (AMSO) and allyl methyl sulfone (AMSO2). Of these, only AMS had a garlic-like odor whereas the other two metabolites were odorless. This demonstrates that the odor change in human milk is not related to a direct transfer of garlic odorants, as is currently believed, but rather derives from a single metabolite. The formation of these metabolites is not fully understood, but AMSO and AMSO2 are most likely formed by the oxidation of AMS in the human body. The excretion rates of these metabolites into breast milk were strongly time-dependent with large inter-individual differences.

( Z)-3-Unsaturated volatile acids, alcohols, and aldehydes are commonly found in foods and other natural sources, playing a vital role in the attractiveness of foods but also as compounds with chemocommunicative function in entomology. However, a systematic investigation of their smell properties, especially regarding humans, has not been carried out until today. To close this gap, the odor thresholds in air and odor qualities of homologous series of ( Z)-3-alken-1-ols, ( Z)-3-alkenals, and ( Z)-3-alkenoic acids were determined by gas chromatography-olfactometry. It was found that the odor qualities in the series of the ( Z)-3-alken-1-ols and ( Z)-3-alkenals changed, with increasing chain length, from grassy, green to an overall fatty and citrus-like, soapy character. On the other hand, the odor qualities of the ( Z)-3-alkenoic acids changed successively from cheesy, sweaty via plastic-like, to waxy in their homologous series. With regard to their odor potencies, the lowest thresholds in air were found for ( Z)-3-hexenal, ( Z)-3-octenoic acid, and ( Z)-3-octenal.

The mode of anticancer activity of simple ferrocenes often relies on their intracellular oxidation with the formation of cytotoxic ferrocenium species. The former compounds should be considered as prodrugs and derived from them ferroceniums as drugs. The drugs are 17e − organometallic species. Therefore, they are chemically unstable and decompose with formation of free cyclopentadienyl ligands (which are further transformed to more stable species) and iron ions. The short lifetime of ferrocenium drugs limits the anticancer effect of ferrocene prodrugs. In this paper we prepared a series of acylated aminoferrocene monomers, dimers, and higher oligonuclear complexes Fc N (where N = 1−4). Drugs [Fc N ] + derived from Fc N (N > 1) are more stable than monomeric [Fc] + , provided that the ferrocene units are electronically coupled. Correspondingly, we expected that Fc N species will be more potent anticancer agents in comparison to the related monomers. These assumptions were confirmed for dimer 10. We observed that this prodrug has sufficient solubility in aqueous solution (100 μM) and favorable lipophilicity (log P = 2.2 ± 0.2). Ferrocene units in 10 are efficiently electronically coupled via a −C(O)NH− linker according to cyclic voltammetry, differential pulse voltammetry, and spectroelectrochemistry. We observed that 10 is the most efficient catalyst of the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the most active anticancer agent in comparison to control monomers and their mixtures.

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