Castor Ricinus communis processing

Castor (Ricinus communis) oil Methyl ethyl cellulose Quillaja saponaria extract foam builder, food processing Benzalkonium chloride foam builder, forest prods. 

The castor plant Ricinus communis) is a coarse herb of the spurge family Euphorbiaceae. When processed, the seed syn. castor bean yields half its weight in a triglyceride oil that is, uniquely, up to 85% ricinoleic acid. The oil is used as an ingredient or precursor in the manufacture of paints, varnishes, resins, synthetic fibres, lubricants, polishes, cosmetics, and many other materials. 

Ricin toxin is found in the beans of the castor plant, Ricinus communis. It is one of the most lethal and easily produced plant toxins. The toxin is present in the entire plant but is concentrated in its seeds. Ricin can be in the form of apowder, mist, or pellet, or dissolved in water or weak acid. It is a very stable substance and is not affected by extremes in temperature. Castor beans are processed throughout the world to make castor oil. Ricin is part of the waste mash produced when castor oil is made. Ricin irreversibly blocks protein synthesis. Ricin has some potential medical uses, such as bone marrow transplants and cancer treatment (to kill cancer cells). 

Plant cells are less specialized than animal cells in their metabolic abilities. An animal cell can develop or lose some metabolic properties depending on the tissue however, this process is mostly irreversible, e.g., there is no way known at present to reverse the development of a nerve cell or a liver cell into an embryonic one. This is true to some extent for plant cells also usually a leaf cell performs leaf metabolism, while a root cell performs only root metabolism. Under certain conditions, it is possible to change the metabolic properties. It was shown by Steward (1964) that carrot root cells, when released from the limitations of their normal tissue environment, can undergo differentiation to form all possible types of cells, leading ultimately to an entire plantlet. Some leaves or pieces of stem can readily form roots. Therefore, owing to this metabolic versatility, one might expect that alkaloids can be formed in all cells of a plant. This may be the case in some plants, such as Ricinus communis (castor bean), but it is not universal. 

Fatty acid desaturases are responsible for catalysis of the O2- and NADH-dependent desaturation reactions, the insertion of a cis double bond in saturated fatty acids (Table 1) [144]. Such reactions are important in fatty acid metabolism and processes that facilitate the delivery of lipid precursors to prostaglandins and cell membranes [347]. Both soluble and membrane-bound desaturases exist, which exhibit different substrate specificities and reactivities [144,348]. The soluble stearoyl-acyl carrier protein desaturase from Ricinus communis (castor seeds) is the best characterized desaturase and catalyzes the insertion of a cis double bond between the C-9 and C-10 carbon atoms of stearoyl ACP to yield an important in... 

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