Cannflavins are flavones (based on luteolin's skeleton) that carry an extra prenyl or geranyl side chain. Cannflavin A carries a geranyl group, cannflavin B a prenyl group, and cannflavin C a geranyl group at a different position. Barrett and colleagues first isolated cannflavins A and B in 1985 during laboratory work on enzyme inhibition. The plant genes for their final steps were described more recently.
In practice
Cannflavins are present in small amounts, mostly in leaf and bract tissue rather than in the trichome resin, and almost never appear on commercial COAs. Their main interest is in research. GenetixBay makes no therapeutic claims: laboratory activity is not evidence of any effect from consuming cannabis.
Don't confuse with
- Cannabinoids: different class, although both use a geranyl group from the same precursor pool.
- Generic flavonoids: apigenin, quercetin and others occur widely in plants; cannflavins are characteristic of cannabis.
- Anthocyanins: pigment flavonoids responsible for purple colour.
Flavonoids are polyphenolic plant compounds, including flavones, flavonols and anthocyanins, that colour and protect plant tissue; cannabis contains common ones plus cannabis-specific cannflavins.An A/B nutrient is a mineral feed split into two concentrates so that calcium (part A) is kept apart from sulfate and phosphate (part B), which would precipitate together.A gene is a stretch of DNA that carries the instructions for one functional product, usually a protein such as an enzyme, and is the basic unit of inheritance.In cannabis, the small leaf-like sheath (perigonal bract) that wraps each female flower's ovary and carries the densest capitate-stalked trichomes.A hair-like outgrowth of the plant's skin; in cannabis the glandular types make and store the resin holding cannabinoids and terpenes.A cannabinoid is any compound that binds the body's cannabinoid receptors or shares the typical cannabis terpenophenolic structure; the plant-made ones are phytocannabinoids such as THCA and CBDA.A water-soluble flavonoid pigment stored in cell vacuoles that colours leaves, stems and flowers red, purple or blue, set by genetics and enhanced by cool temperatures.Geranyl pyrophosphate (GPP) is a ten-carbon terpene precursor that cannabis uses both to build monoterpenes and, joined to olivetolic acid, to make the cannabinoid precursor CBGA.
