Abstract
Anthocyanins, one of the most wide variety pigment in plants, are modified with sugar and often with organic acid. In general, sugar modification of anthocyanin to basic skeleton is catalyzed by the enzyme UDP-glycose:anthocyanin glycosyltransferase. However, it had not been elucidated that glucosylation at 5 position of anthocyanidin in carnation and at 7 position in delphinium. We identified a novel anthocyanin glucosyltransferase activity in the crude enzyme prepared from carnation petals and of an unidentified glucose donor substance in the carnation petals. We found that the donor molecule was vanillyl-β-D-glucose (VG) using preparative HPLC. We also succeeded in detection of anthocyanin 7-glucosyltranseferase activity in the crude protein extract prepared from the petals of delphinium using VG as the donor.
This research was partially supported by the Research and Development Program for New Bio-industry Initiatives.
