Tricin (5,7,4'-trihydroxy-3',5'-dimethoxyflavone) occurs in its glycosidic form in rice bran and other grass species such as wheat, barley, and maize.
Tricin is considered sufficiently safe for clinical development as a
cancer chemopreventive agent, therefore it can be used for
cancer prevention. This study established a new method for the preparation of
tricin from bamboo leaves as an alternative to traditional methods such as chemical synthesis via the Baker-Venkata-Raman reaction between acetylsyringic
acid and
phloroacetophenone.
Tricin was prepared from an
antioxidant product that was derived from bamboo leaves (AOB) by extraction with aqueous
ethanol. A concentrated
solution of this product was obtained and then processed by
polystyrene (AB-8) resin column chromatography and preparative high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with 30% (v/v)
acetonitrile in 1% (v/v)
acetic acid as the mobile phase. The collected
tricin-rich fraction was further sequentially purified by dialysis membrane separation and
drowning-out crystallization methods. The purity was assessed by analytical HPLC with 25% (v/v)
acetonitrile in 1% (v/v)
acetic acid as the mobile phase, and the chemical confirmation was evaluated by infrared, mass, nuclear magnetic resonance, and ultraviolet spectroscopies.
Tricin (3.09 g) was prepared from 174 g of a crude column chromatography fraction obtained from 5 L of AOB concentrated
solution. The present method is appropriate for preparing quantities of pure
tricin, which can be used for the quantification of
tricin in various plant herbs and further for
pharmaceutical/biomedical applications and evaluation.