Curcumin is also found in Curcuma zedoaria (white turmeric) which is a perennial herb native to India and Indonesia.
Many species of genus Curcuma such as Curcuma zedoarua , Curcuma aromatica etc also contain curcumin in smaller quantities
Curcumin belongs to the ‘diaryl heptanoid’ group of secondary metabolites, generally distributed in Curcuma species, but not confined to the genus Curcuma. Curcuma longa (turmeric), one of the major sources of curcumin contains nearly 5% (dry weight basis) curcumin, while in other Curcuma species, the percentage is comparatively less. Generally, the more the yellow colour, the curcumin content is high. We have found that in a south Indian endemic Curcuma species, Curcuma raktakanta, the curcumin content is only 0.042 %. In Curcuma ecalcarata, another south Indian endemic Curcuma species, though curcumin was also there, the significant compound was trans, trans-1,7-diphenyl-5-hydroxy-4,6-heptadiene-3-one, another diaryl heptanoid (Rameshkumar et al., Curcuma ecalcarata- New natural source of pinocembrin and piperitenone. Natural Product Research. 2014. DOI: 10.1080/14786419.2014.994210). In addition to diarylheptanoids, diarylpentanoids, steroids, triterpenoids, diterpenoids, sesquiterpenoids and monoterpenoids were also reported from Curcuma species.
You can easily separate curcumin, demethoxy curcumin and bis demethoxy curcumin through column chromatography or preparative TLC of Curcuma longa rhizome methanol extract (TLC Solvent system: CHCl3: MeOH (9.5:0.5). The top most compound in TLC is curcumin, the middle one is demethoxy curcumin and the bottom one is bis demethoxy curcumin (see the attached figure).
WU Bing; NI He; LI Hai-hang; LI Ling (2008) SPE-HPLC Quantification of Curcumin in Different Cultivars and Organs of Ginger, Zingiber officinale Roscoe. Natural Product Research & Development. Vol. 20 Issue 5, p 859
Please provide the names of some other sources of curcumin from plant sources, other than Curcuma Family.
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