Progress in research on the commercial use of cochineal insects and cochineal dye

Author of the article:TANG ShenYang；CHEN MengYao；XIAO HuaMei；LI Fei

Author's Workplace：1. Institute of Insect Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; 2. College of Life Sciences and Resource Environment, Key Laboratory of Crop Growth and Development Regulation, Jiangxi Province, Yichun University, Yichun 336000, China

Key Words：cochineal; cochineal dye; carminic acid; detection method; application

Abstract：The cochineal insect (Homoptera: Dactylopiidae) has a long history of artificial breeding and commercial use. A red pigment, cochineal, can be extracted from dried females. Cochineal is mainly comprised of carmine acid, kermesic acid, flavokermesic acid, DCⅣ, DCⅦ, and spiroketalcarminic acid, and has high stability and safety in a wide range of applications, including in medicines, as a natural pigment additive, cosmetics and other fields. Due to its high price, encouraging farmers to breed cochineal insects is a Poverty Alleviation project in remote parts of Yunnan Province. However, the quality of cochineal is affected by variables such as gender, and development stage, and environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, light and pests. Because of this variability, NMR, HPLC-DAD-ESI MS/MS, excitation-emission fluorescence data and three-way PARAFAC decomposition, multivariate statistical analysis and other techniques are used to detect and validate cochineal quality. This paper reviews the commercial application of cochineal and cochineal dye in order to attract additional research interest to these products.