The role of glycosides in the light-stabilization of 3-hydroxyflavone (flavonol) dyes as revealed by HPLC

XIAN ZHANG; DOMINIQUE CARDON; JOSÉ LUIS CABRERA; RICHARD LAURSEN

SPRINGER WIEN

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2010 vol. 169 p. 327 - 327

b> Abstract In many parts of the world, before the introduction of synthetic dyes, plants containing derivatives of flavonols (3-hydroxyflavones) were used to impart yellow colors to textile fibers, despite the fact that 3-hydroxyflavones (e.g., quercetin) are themselves unstable to light. In this report we show, using reversed phase HPLC with diode array and mass spectrometric detection, that glycosylation of the 3-hydroxy group stabilizes the 3-hydroxyflavone towards light, and that some plants (e.g., buds from the pagoda tree, Sophora japonica, contain a glycosidase that converts the light-stable rutin to light-unstable, quercetin. Thus proper p