天然着色料アルカネット色素の主色素成分と基原種に関する研究

抄録

A commercial alkanet color was investigated using chemical and molecular biological methods. In our previous study, five major pigments were isolated from the color and identified to be shikonin/alkannin and their alkyl esters. In this study, the hydrolysates of these pigments were analyzed using chiral phase HPLC-CD. As a result, we confirmed that the principal pigments of the color are shikonin and its alkyl ester derivatives. The DNA sequences of the nuclear rDNA ITS1 region for the authentic plants of Anchusa officinalis and Borago officinalis and the source plant of the color were analyzed. The resulting sequence alignment clarified that the DNA sequences of the authentic plants are identical to the corresponding sequence in the database. On the contrary, the DNA sequence of the source plant is not identical with that of A. officinalis, although it is similar to those of the Boraginaceus plants, such as Echium vulgare, Ogastemma pusillum, and so on. Therefore, it seems that the original plant for the color is a Boraginaceus plant other than A. officinalis.