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The color of food is critical to the food and beverage industries, as it influences many properties beyond eye-pleasing visuals including flavor, safety, and nutritional value. Blue is one of the rarest colors in nature's food palette-especially a cyan blue-giving scientists few sources for natural blue food colorants. Finding a natural cyan blue dye equivalent to FD&C Blue No. 1 remains an industry-wide challenge and the subject of several research programs worldwide. Computational simulations and large-array spectroscopic techniques were used to determine the 3D chemical structure, color expression, and stability of this previously uncharacterized cyan blue anthocyanin-based colorant. Synthetic biology and computational protein design tools were leveraged to develop an enzymatic transformation of red cabbage anthocyanins into the desired anthocyanin. More broadly, this research demonstrates the power of a multidisciplinary strategy to solve a long-standing challenge in the food industry.

The structure of commelinin, a blue plant pigment, has been determined using X-ray crystallographic analysis. Commelinin, which belongs to the anthocyanin group of pigments, is present in the blue flowers of the plant Commelina communis. The crystalline form of commelinin indicates that the blue in the plant's petals derives from the 4'-keto anhydrobase anion of the anthocyanidin nucleus and that this anion is made stable by metal complexing to Mg2+, which is produced by powerful molecular association.

Summary: Hydrangea sepals exhibit a wide range of colors, from red, through purple, to blue; the purple color is a color mosaic. However, all of these colors are derived from the same components: simple anthocyanins, 3‐O‐glycosyldelphinidins, three co‐pigment components, acylquinic acids and aluminum ions (Al3+). We show the color mosaic is a result of graded differences in intravacuolar factors.In order to clarify the mechanisms of mosaic color, we performed single‐cell analyses of vacuolar pH, and anthocyanin, co‐pigment and Al3+ content. From the sepals, a protoplast mixture of various colors was obtained. The cell color was evaluated by microspectrophotometry and vacuolar pH then was recorded by using a pH microelectrode. The organic and Al3+ contents were quantified by micro‐HPLC.We found that the bluer the cell, the greater the ratio of 5‐O‐acylquinic acids and Al3+ to anthocyanins. Furthermore, reproducing experiments were conducted by mixing the components under various pH condition; all the colors could be reproduced in the various mixing conditions.Based on the above, we provide experimental evidence for cell color variation in hydrangea. Our study demonstrates the expression of phenotypic differences without any direct genomic control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experimental data on the kinetic and thermodynamic acidities of pentacarbonyl(cyclobutenylidene)chromium complexes in acetonitrile. Results of the gas phase ab initio calculations indicate that in the gas phase, the effect of antiaromaticity on the thermodynamic acidities is large but strongly attenuated in acetonitrile.

A study conducted revealed that a homogeneous two-component polycondensation reaction without strict stoichiometric balance could lead to polymers of high molecular weight by catalysis if certain structural reactivity criteria are met in the monomers.