Coniferin

CaH803. Fine white needles, m.p. 82°C, b.p. 285°C, strong vanilla odour, characteristic taste. It occurs extensively in nature, and is the odoriferous principle of the vanilla pod it can be obtained from the glucoside coniferin. Vanillin is made commercially from the ligno-sulphonic acid obtained as a by-product in the manufacture of wood pulp. It is one of the most important flavouring and perfuming... 

The use of the enzyme system then known as invertin, which was extracted from beer yeast with water and precipitated from the aqueous solution, was available to Fischer when he began his classical studies of the enzymic hydrolysis of glucosides reported in 1894. The stage was also set by another enzyme known as emulsin, which Fischer purchased from E. Merck, Darmstadt, and which was known to hydrolyze several natural aromatic glucosides such as salicin, coniferin, arbutin, and the synthetic phenyl glucoside. These aryl glucosides were already known to not be cleaved by invertin. 

However, degradation experiments showed that conifer lignin must contain not only coniferyl, but also -coumaiyl and sinapyl components as well [cf. for example 100) ]. It has now been shown that spruce cambium contains not only coniferin, but also small amounts of... 

In 1874, Holzminden chemists Ferdinand Tiemann and Wilhelm Haarmann first succeeded in synthesising vanillin from coniferin. Holzminden became the site where vanillin was first produced industrially. Haarmann Reimer was the world s first factory in which synthetic scents and flavourings were produced [5]. 

For the synthesis several processes have been described using different natural starting materials, such as coniferin, eugenol, guaiacol and lignin (for reviews, see [22, 44, 48, 60, 61]. 

The second type of data is derived from biochemical experiments related to the three cinnamyl alcohols—/>-coumaryl alcohol (I), coniferyl alcohol (II), and sinapyl alcohol (III) and their phenolic glucosides— >-glucocoumaryl alcohol (IV), coniferin (V), and syringin (VI). These and the following formulas do not differentiate between cis and trans isomers. 

The role of coniferyl alcohol as the immediate precursor of softwood lignin has been demonstrated by using 14C labeling. Administration of labeled coniferyl alcohol as /3-glucoside (coniferin) to seedlings of spruce results in the exclusive formation of radioactive lignin. 

Coniferin (= Abietin Coniferoside Coniferyl alcohol 4-0-glucoside Laricin) (phenylpropanoid glycoside)... 

Abe vera (Aloeaceae), Linum usitatissimum (Linaceae) [fungus-induced phytoalexin] Pinus strobus (Pinaceae) [wood], Vanilla mexicana (Orchidaceae) glycoside Coniferin... 

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