Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is one of the most extensively used oil crops in the world. However, little is known about how its compounds are synthesized at the genetic level. In this study, Solexa-based deep sequencing on seed, leaf and petal of safflower produced a de novo transcriptome consisting of 153,769 unigenes. We annotated 82,916 of the unigenes with gene annotation and assigne...

Evaluation of four safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) genotypes for oil content and fatty acidcomposition showed that oil content varied from 22.16 to 34.39% and the highest seed oilcontent was obtained from Isfahan14 genotype (34.39%, respectively). Among those fatty acidswere detected, linoleic acid (75.81- 77.86%) was the predominant fatty acid followed by oleic(12.57–13.75%), palmitic (6.0...

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) is a multipurpose crop that can grow in arid and semi-arid environments because of its tolerance to drought stress, salinity, lower higher temperatures. Despite safflower’s characteristic, stress negatively impact growth development. Drought reduces plant height biomass, leaf chlorophyll content area, photosynthesis rate, yield components, oil yield, fatty ac...

Seeds of oil crops are both important sources edible oils and bioactive compounds. The present study was carried out to determine variations in content, compounds (total phenolic, flavonoid, carotenoid, xanthophyll tocopherol) fatty acid compositions the seeds 20 safflower genotypes. Relationships among these parameters were also examined with correlation principal coordinate analysis. Signific...

This chapter deals with the biology of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius). It contains information for use during risk/safety regulatory assessment genetically engineered varieties intended to be grown in environment (biosafety). includes elements taxonomy, centres origin, cultivation, reproductive biology, genetics, hybridisation and introgression, as well ecology. Annexes present safflower’s co...

Precarthamin, a yellow precursor of carthamin, was efficiently isolated from the yellow petals of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L. ) with Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography and preparative HPLC, and identified with UV-vis and NMR spectrometry. The UV-vis spectrum of precarthamin showed lambda(max) of 238 and 406 nm in MeOH. The molar extinction coefficients of precarthamin at 406 nm in MeOH...

Flowers of Carthamus tinctorius L. are traditionally used in China to treat cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases. Hydroxysafflor yellow A (HSYA), the main constituent of Carthamus tinctorius L. flowers, is known for its multiple biological activities. In the present study, HSYA was isolated from Carthamus tinctorius L. flowers by a macroporous resin adsorption chromatography method coupl...