Rumoured Media Hype On E-64

Conflict of Interests The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.""Saffron, the dried and dark-red stigmas of Crocus sativus L., is one of the most important spices in the world and has been mainly cultivated in Iran, Greece, Morocco, India, Spain, and Italy. Saffron is used mainly as a spice for flavoring and coloring food, and numerous studies have also shown saffron to be capable of having a variety of pharmacological effects, such as antihypertensive, anticonvulsant, antitussive, antigenotoxic, and cytotoxic effects and anxiolytic and aphrodisiac, antioxidant, antidepressant, anti-inflammatory, and relaxant activities. Saffron also improves memory and learning skills and increases blood flow in the retina and choroid. The antioxidant activity has been hypothesized to be one of the important mechanisms for the JQ1 various pharmacological effects of saffron [1]. Saffron extracts and several compounds from saffron including crocins, crocetin, carotene, and safranal have exhibited different antioxidative activities both in vivo and in vitro [2]. The main active compounds in saffron are crocins, a group of glycoside derivatives from the carotenoid crocetin; terpenic aldehydes known as safranal; and a glycoside terpenoid, picrocrocin, responsible for saffron's coloring power, bitter taste, and aroma, respectively [3]. The quantities of these compounds in saffron E-64 are influenced by many factors, and the dehydration treatment necessary to convert Crocus sativus L. stigmas into saffron spice is one of the most important factors [4]. In order to optimize the dehydration process, saffron from India [5], Iran [6], Australia [7], Italy [8], Turkey [9], and Spain [10, 11], dried by shade drying, sun drying [5], solar drying [5], dehumidification drying [5], infrared drying [6], microwave drying [6], electric oven drying [5�C7, 11], freeze drying [7, 9], hot air drying [10, 11], vacuum oven drying [5], or cross-flow oven drying [5], was studied. All the saffron samples dried by different R428 in vivo methods in the reported papers were evaluated in terms of their quality determined by the ISO/TS 3632 or the quantities of the crocins, picrocrocin, and safranal determined by HPLC or GC. In addition, the possible pathways for generation and degradation of the main compounds in saffron were also studied to explain the change in quantity of these compounds during drying process. As shown in Figure 1 [4], the main compounds are formed from zeaxanthin which is broken down by an enzyme called CsZCD at both ends to generate crocetin dialdehyde and picrocrocin. Subsequently, picrocrocin is transformed by thermal treatment or alkaline-acid hydrolysis into safranal with HTCC as the potential intermediate compound for the synthesis of safranal from picrocrocin [4].