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Anthocyanin pigments are extracted from various plants and used for diverse purposes. The overall goal of this study was to develop high-anthocyanin corn to enhance the economic efficiency of anthocyanin production. We determined and compared the anthocyanin contents from the different parts of purple corn in various breeding lines. Our results revealed that purple corn produced the anthocyanin pigment throughout the plant, especially high in the husk and cob regions, although anthocyanin levels varied significantly among different plant parts. We analyzed the 295 selected lines from the 2006 breeding population, and it showed that anthocyanin levels of husks ranged from 17.3% to 18.9% of dry weight, roughly 10 times more than the standard current purple corn kernel content, 1.78%. LC-MS/MS analysis demonstrated that the main components of purple corn husk anthocyanin were cyanidin derivatives, and the most prevalent constituents were cyanidin-3-glucoside, cyanidin-3-succinylglucoside and pelargonidin-3-(6''-malonylglucoside). The results suggested that high-anthocyanin corn will boost the purple corn pigment production far more than its current level.

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Among the extracts from 420 kinds of herbs, Prunus salicina, showing the highest glucosyltransferase inhibition activity, was purified and designated GTI-0163. Structural determination of GTI-0163 revealed it to be an oleic acid-based unsaturated fatty acid. GTI-0163 was an uncompetitive inhibitor of GTase. Among the unsaturated fatty acids, oleic acid showed a significantly higher GTase inhibitory activity than the saturated fatty acids or the ester form of oleic acid. These results strongly suggested that both the number of double bonds and the existence of free carboxyl groups of fatty acids play an important role in GTase inhibitory activity.