The effect of parabens on the shelf-life of crocetin esters and picrocrocin in aqueous saffron solutions was studied. Degradation of saffron crocetin esters fits a first-order kinetics model, and the results indicated that the crocetin (beta-D-glucosyl)-(beta-D-gentiobiosyl) esters were more stable than the crocetin di-(beta-D-gentiobiosyl) esters regardless of whether trans and cis isomers wer...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Regulatory T cells (Treg) are critical regulators of asthma. Crocetin is isolated from Chinese herb saffron and is a natural carotenoid dicarboxylic acid with anti-inflammatory potential. However, the effects of Crocetin on asthma as well as the underlying mechanisms have not been studied. METHODS We used Crocetin to treat mice with established ovalbumin (OVA)-induced asthma. ...

Crocetin is an aglycon of carotenoid extracted by saffron stigmas (Crocus sativus L.) and known to have a potent anti-oxidative effect. Amyliod β (Aβ), hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, is reported to have neurotoxicity partly via oxidative stress. In this study, we investigated the effect of crocetin on hippocampal HT22 cell death induced by Aβ1-42. Furthermore, to clarify the mechanism underly...

BACKGROUND Due to excellent performance in antitumor, antioxidation, antihypertension, antiatherosclerotic and antidepressant activities, crocetin, naturally exists in Crocus sativus L., has great potential applications in medical and food fields. Microbial production of crocetin has received increasing concern in recent years. However, only a patent from EVOVA Inc. and a report from Lou et al....

BACKGROUND Endothelial dysfunction, characterized by an enhancement in vasoconstriction, is clearly associated with hypertension. Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) bioactive compounds have been recognized to have hypotensive properties. Recently, we have reported that crocetin exhibits potent vasodilator effects on isolated aortic rings from hypertensive rats. In this work, we have aimed to analyze t...

Iridoid glycosides (mainly geniposide) and crocetin derivatives (crocins) are the two major active constituents in Gardenia jasminoides Ellis. In the present study, geniposide, crocins, crocin-1 and crocetin were separated from gardenia chromatographically. Then, mice were orally administrated with geniposide (400 mg/kg b.w.), crocins (400 mg/kg b.w.), crocin-1 (400 mg/kg b.w.) and crocetin (14...

Crocetin is the main pharmacologically-active component of saffron and has been considered as a promising candidate for cancer chemoprevention. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the anticancer effects of crocetin and the possible mechanisms of these properties in the esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell line KYSE-150. The KYSE-150 cells were cultured in Dulbecco's modified ...

Crocetin is a natural carotenoid compound of gardenia fruits and saffron, which has various effects in biological systems. In this study, we investigated the antioxidant effects of crocetin on reactive oxygen species such as hydroxyl radical using in vitro X-band electron spin resonance and spin trapping. Crocetin significantly inhibited hydroxyl radical generation compared with the control. Mo...

Oxidative stress plays a critical role in the progression of pathological cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. Because crocetin represses oxidative stress in vitro and in vivo, we have suggested that crocetin would repress cardiac hypertrophy by targeting oxidative stress-dependent signalling. We tested this hypothesis using primary cultured cardiac myocytes and fibroblasts and one well-estab...

Generation of volatiles by thermal treatments has been studied in saffron spice for two reasons: (a) to determine volatile profile changes during simulated aging processes and (b) to study the volatile generation pathway. During the aging process, while the amounts of C10 compounds such as safranal and HTCC increase, the amounts of C9 compounds such as isophorone and 2,6,6-trimethylcyclohexane-...