COSMOS FLOWERS AS SOURCES OF THREE TYPESOF DYES

Abstract

The accumulation and species composition of anthocyanins in the flowers of several vari-eties of double-feathered cosmea (Cosmos bipinnatus) and in the flowers of red and orange color-ation are more sulfur-yellow (C. sulphureus).And the level of accumulation of lutein diesters in the flowers of C. sulphureus of lemon yellow, yellow, orange and red colors is also determined. It was found that according to the level of anthocyanin accumulation, the flowers of C. bipinnatus of intensely red color are comparable to the fruits of black currant, and the species composition differs due to the different effectiveness in different varieties, primarily O-methyltransferase -from 15 to 60%, which ensures the transfer of cyanidin derivatives to peonidin derivatives. The effectiveness of rhamnosyltransferase in all studied cases is about90 percent or more, which affects the fact that the main components of anthocyanins of flowers are cyanidin and peonidin rhamnosides. In the case of C. sulphureus the effectiveness of O-methyltransferase has not been detected, therefore cyanidin derivatives are synthesized in the complete absence of peonidin derivatives. But the pecu-liarity of the species is the biosynthesis of 3-deoxyanthocyanin -4'-glucoside cosmonidin, which, along with xanthophylls, provides a yellow color due to a strong hypsochromicshift of the absorp-tion maximum. The belonging of this substance to anthocyanins (as substances having a positive charge on the aglycone) is confirmed by an increase in retention under conditions of ion-pair re-versed-phase HPLC with an increase in the concentration of sodium heptanesulfonate in the mo-bile phase. It was found that in all the studied samples of C. sulphureus flowers, lutein diesters are synthesized with a practically color-independent ratio of diester species, among which dimyristate is predominant. The level of accumulation of xanthophylls increases sharply during the transition from lemon-yellow to yellow flowers. The increase in the color of the petals from yellow to orange and red is accompanied by a relatively small increase in the accumulation level, reaching 0.5 g per 100 g of dry petals. Thus, the flowers of the plant are good sources of traditional anthocyanins, as dyes for the food and medical industry, as well as yellow water-soluble and fat-soluble dyes.