Carthamin from safflower petals has been used for centuries in Asia as a red colorant for dyes and cosmetics. Carthamin is unstable, however, both in hot, aqueous solutions, which causes difficulties in its analysis in textiles, and to light, which results in fading of dyed textiles. We have found, using HPLC and mass spectrometric analysis, that carthamin undergoes a reverse aldol condensation...

Various saccharides and related substances were mixed with carthamin in aqueous solutions and their effects on red colour stability compared. At a low temperature range (5 °C), monoand disaccharides contributed to preservation of the carthamin red colouration. No monoand disaccharides could relieve carthamin from being bleached at a high temperature (30 °C). Among poly­ saccharides and their de...

Glucose was found to be a potential stimulator o f carthamin formation in triturated florets o f C. tinctorius. At a 10 m M glucose level, carthamin-producing activity was raised from 3.2fold (upper) to 2.0-fold (lower) level compared with the control having no sugar. Glucose oxi­ dase (ß-D-glucose: oxygen 1-oxidoreductase, EC 1.1.3.4) from Aspergillus niger could catalyze the conversion of pre...

Koshi Saito, Yoshiyuki Takahashi, and Mizu Wada Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, Tokai University, 1117 Kitakaname, Hiratsuka-shi, Kanagawa-ken 259-12, Japan Z. Naturforsch. 40c, 819-826 (1985); received August 12, 1985 Carthamin Synthesis, Safflower Seedling, Catalytic Property An enzyme associated with carthamin formation in Carthamus tinctorius L. (carthamin-synthesiz...

Two Carthamus tinctorius varieties (Jawhara and 104) were studied in order to investigate their natural dyes contents and biological activities. Obtained results showed that quinochalcone contents and antioxidant activities varied considerably as function of flowering stages. So flowers at fructification stage contained the highest carthamin content with the strongest antioxidant capacity with ...

Effect of manganese with three different valence states on carthamin formation was studied by using freshly collected flowers from dyer’s saffron ( C. tinctorius) capitula. At 1 10 hm con­ centration, these cations accelerated markedly the carthamin formation induced by endoge­ nous enzyme(s) in the detached floral tissues. The acceleration was obviously dependent on the valence state of the te...

Carthamin potassium salt isolated from Carthamus tinctorius L. was purified by an improved traditional Japanese method, without using column chromatography. The 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signals of the pure product were fully assigned one- two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy, while high purity deprotonation at 3′ position carthamin confirmed atomic adsorption spectroscopy nano-el...