ARS | Publication request: MODIFICATION OF SIMMONDSIN AND ITS DEMETHYLATED ANALOGUES

Submitted to: Industrial Crops and Products
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: May 12, 2000
Publication Date: N/A

Interpretive Summary: The jojoba plant, a pereninl shrub grown in semi-arid conditions, is a new industrial crop which produces seeds rich in industrially important oil. In addition to proteins, the seed meal contains hunger satiation ingredients and related substances which are separable. These related natural substances have no known uses and, therefore, are regarded as waste materials of jojoba seed meal processing. It is important to have optimal economic value from as much of the resources of a new industrial crop as possible in order to justify the outlay of investment. Thus, to enhance the economics of this new crop, we have chemically modified the otherwise waste materials to produce two new compounds that have the potential of maximizing utilization of jojoba seed meal.

Technical Abstract: Simmondsin and its analogues, demethyl-, didemethylsimmondsins and the 2'- and 3'-simmondsin ferulates are components isolable from jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis) seed meal. While the parent compound, simmondsin, is reported to exhibit anorexic properties, its demethylated analogues not only lack this behavior, they also have no identifiable market value. To create optimum utilization of these by-products, the goal of this research project was to chemically functionalize demethyl- and didemethyl simmondsins thereby transforming them to materials having economic potential. Thus using the intrinsic chemical properties of the olefin groups in demethylated simmondsins we have generated simmondsin oxide analogues. We expect these simmondsin oxiranes would provide platforms for expanding utilization of the otherwise waste materials of jojoba seed meal processing.