Figure 2.

Chemical structure of curcuminoids, and characterization of curcuminoids extracted from turmeric used in this study. The main components of turmeric are curcumin, desmethoxycurcumin, and bis-desmethoxycurcumin. Curcuminoids were obtained from the dried turmeric powder (from Curcuma longa) by solvent extraction using ethanol and purified further by selective extraction and crystallization using hexane and isopropanol as described in the methods section. Curcuminoid composition of our turmeric extract was checked by thin-layer chromatography using chloroform:hexane:methanol (1:1:0.1, v/v/v) as the mobile phase. Curcuminoids in our turmeric extract were identified as curcumin (69.7%), bisdemethoxycurcumin (25.8%), and demethoxycurcumin (4.5%) and curcumin was the major component as has been shown in previous publications describing curcuminoid content of C. longa [48].