Quercitrin is a

glycoside In chemistry, a glycoside is a molecule in which a sugar is bound to another functional group via a glycosidic bond. Glycosides play numerous important roles in living organisms. Many plants store chemicals in the form of inactive glycoside ...

formed from the

flavonoid Flavonoids (or bioflavonoids; from the Latin word ''flavus'', meaning yellow, their color in nature) are a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites found in plants, and thus commonly consumed in the diets of humans. Chemically, flavonoids ...

quercetin and the

deoxy sugar Deoxy sugars are sugars that have had a hydroxyl group replaced with a hydrogen atom. Examples include: * Deoxyribose, or 2-deoxy-D- ribose, a constituent of DNA * Fucose, or 6-deoxy-L- galactose, main component of fucoidan of brown algae ...

rhamnose Rhamnose (Rha, Rham) is a naturally occurring deoxy sugar. It can be classified as either a methyl- pentose or a 6-deoxy- hexose. Rhamnose predominantly occurs in nature in its L-form as L-rhamnose (6-deoxy-L- mannose). This is unusual, since mo ...

. Austrian chemist Heinrich Hlasiwetz (1825-1875) is remembered for his chemical analysis of quercitrin.

Occurrence

Quercitrin is a constituent of the dye quercitron. It can be found in Tartary buckwheat ('' Fagopyrum tataricum'') and in oaks species like the North American white oak (''

Quercus alba An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ...

'') and English oak (''

Quercus robur ''Quercus robur'', commonly known as common oak, pedunculate oak, European oak or English oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native to most of Europe west of the Caucasus. It is wid ...

'').Analysis of oak tannins by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry. Pirjo Mämmelä, Heikki Savolainen, Lasse Lindroos, Juhani Kangas and Terttu Vartiainen, Journal of Chromatography A, Volume 891, Issue 1, 1 September 2000, Pages 75-83, It is also found in '' Nymphaea odorata'' or '' Taxillus kaempferi''.The constituents of Taxillus kaempferi and the host, Pinus thunbergii. I. Catechins and flavones of Taxillus kaempferi. Konishi T, Nishio T, Kiyosawa S, Fujiwara Y and Konoshima T, Yakugaku Zasshi., February 1996, volume 116, issue 2, pages 148-157 (article in Japanese),

Metabolism

The enzyme quercitrinase catalyzes the chemical reaction between quercitrin and H₂O to yield L-rhamnose and quercetin.

References

Quercetin glycosides Flavonol rhamnosides {{aromatic-stub