Crocins, saffron

The coloring principles of saffron are crocin [42553-65-1] and crocetin [27876-94-4J. Crocin is the gentiobiose diester of crocetin (44)... 

Crocetin [27876-94-4] Cl Natural Yellow 6 Cl 75100) occurs in saffron as crocin [42553-65-1] (46), the digentiobiose ester of crocetin (47). 

Crocus sativus petals Crocin, crocetin (saffron) Food colouring... 

Watanabe, T. et al., Separation and determination of yellow and red Safflower pigments in food by capillary electrophoresis, Biosci. Biotech. Biochem., 61, 1179, 1997. Fekrat, H., The application of crocin and saffron ethanol-extractable components in formulation of health care and beauty care products. Proceedings of International Symposium on Saffron Biology and Biotechnology, Fernandez, J.A. and Abdullaev, R, Eds., Albacete, Spain, 2004, p. 650. 

Crocin, from stigmas of crocus (saffron) or fruits of cape jasmine Gardenia Jasminoides... 

Greek saffron Picrocrocin, safranal, crocins, kaempferol diglucoside Me0H/H20 A MeOH B H20 with AcOH 250, 308, 440 nm/ ESI (+) ESI interface 22... 

Crocin. Crocin is found in saffron and in gardenias. Extracting crocin from saffron is not economically viable. Saffron is obtained from Crocus sativus. Seventy thousand plants are needed to produce 500 g of saffron, which would contain 70 g of crocin. The commercial source of crocin is the gardenia bush. The town of Saffron Walden in Essex, UK, takes its name because saffron used to be produced there. 

The yellow crocins from gardenia have received some success for the same colorant applications as saffron,37 but the iridoid derivatives have not received the same promotion. The range of colorants available from the same source would seem to make them attractive possibilities. 

Fig. 2.21. Representative HPLC chromatograms of the extracts of (a) Spanish saffron spiked with standards, (b) Iranian saffron and (c) Zhizi purchased from Nanjing. Peaks 1 = crocin 1 2 = crocin 2 3 = crocin 3 4 = crocin 4 5 = crocetin 6 = lS-cd-retinoic acid (internal standard) 7 and 8 = cw-crocins. Reprinted with permission from N. Li et al. [46],...

Fig. 2.22. Chromatograms of methanohwater (50 per cent, v/v) saffron extracts from Mancha (a), Rio (b) and Sierra (c) types, simultaneously recorded at 250, 310 and 440 nm, including 4-nitroaniline as internal standard. The mobile and stationary phases were a linear gradient of methanol-water from 20 to 70 per cent in 50min, and an ODS column, respectively. The flowrate was lml/min, temperature 30°C and sample size 50/jl. The following compounds are present picrocrocin (1), HTCC (2), 3-entiobiosile-kaempferol (3), a-crocin (4), crocin 2 (5), crocin 3 (6), safranal (7), crocin 4 (8), crocin 5 (9), crocin 6(10) and internal standard (I>S.). Reprinted with permission from R Lozano et al. [47].

Bathaie SZ, Kermani FMZ, Shams A. Crocin Bleaching Assay Using Purified Di-gen-tiobiosyl Crocin (a-crocin) from Iranian Saffron. Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences. 2011 14(5) 399-406. 

Saffron Crocus sativus Crocin, safranol Callus, organs ND [68-70]... 

N.A. Crocine glycosides, beta-carotene, phytoene, phytofluene, pinene, safranal, cineole.100-107 Saffron stomachic, antispasmodic, emmenagogue properties. 

We already indicated that intravenous injection of ethanol blocked the LTP induced by tetanic stimulation [18]. However, when saffron crude extracts were injected intracerebroventricularly, the blocking effect of ethanol on the LTP decreased dose-dependently [19]. Moreover, crocin prevents the ethanol-induced impairment of memory acquisition in ST and SD tests [20], From these results it is easily suggested that crocin antagonized the blocking effect of ethanol on the induction of LTP. 

An oral administration of crocin had no effect on memory acquisition in normal mice but improved the ethanol-induced impairment of learning behaviors of mice in passive avoidance performance tasks. This phenomenon resembled that of crude extract of saffron as reported previously. The tendencies of the effect between CSE and crocin are similar to each other. From these results it can be easily speculated that crocin is the most important principle in crude extract of saffron. Other crocetin glucoside esters weakly antagonized the blocking effect of ethanol on the LTP compared to crocin. 

Therefore, an indoor cultivation system was established in Japan nearly 80 years ago [1]. The stigmas can be collected from full blooming C. sativus in the room, Fig. (1) resulted that the concentration of crocin reached approximately 30 % in ethanol extracts of saffron [1]. This is the reason why the indoor cultivation method is advantageous for the achievement of a high quality and homogenous saffron and for saving time. 

Concerning the pharmacological activities of saffron components, the inhibitory effect for the increase of bilirubin in blood [2], and the deterioration activities or cholesterol and triglyceride levels in serum by crocin and crocetin have been reported [3]. Anti-tumor activity of saffron on mice transplanted with sarcoma-180,... 

Saffron extract contains many carotenoids such as crocetin, crocetin di-glucose ester, crocetin gentiobiose glucose ester, and crocin (crocetin di-gentiobiose ester), whose chemical structures are shown in Figure 58.1. These carotenoids scavenge free radicals, especially superoxide anions, and so may protect cells from oxidative stress. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that these carotenoids are useful in sperm cryoconservation and in protecting heptocytes from toxins. 

Abe, K. and Saito, H., Effects of saffron extract and its constituent crocin on learning behavior and long-term potentiation, Phytother. Res., 14, 149-152, 2000. 

Another group of methods relies on the destruction of an indicator by an oxidant, leading to a decrease of its characteristic absorbance or fluorescence. Usually this decrease is not linear with time, so the method of choice for the analysis of data is the either the lag time measurement or the area-under-curve approach, that is, comparing the areas under curves of absorbance or fluorescence versus time for a reference sample and a sample studied. Antioxidants protecting the oxidizable substrate increase the area under the kinetic curve (Fig. 4). An absorptiometric method used the bleaching of the carotenoid crocin induced by ABAP (L23, T7). However, crocin is rather expensive and the recommended method of its preparation (by extraction of saffron) may lead to extracts of different composition and properties varying from batch to batch. 

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