genin Chem.
(ˈdʒɛnɪn)
[The ending of sapogenin, saligenin, used as a generic word.]
a. Any of various steroids that occur as aglycones in certain glycosides present in some plants and toad venoms. b. Occas. used as the name of specific compounds.
| [1874 O. Schmiedeberg in Arch. f. exper. Path. u. Pharm. III. 24 So bildet sich ein schön krystallisirender Körper, den man in Analogie mit dem Sapogenin Digitogenin nennen kann.] 1915 Chem. Abstr. IX. 1336 Genin, C21H30O5, wartlets from 15 parts of b.96% alc. 1925 Jrnl. Chem. Soc. CXXVIII. i. 1295 The genin is converted by cold, concentrated hydrochloric acid into ‘dianhydrogitoxigenin’, identical with digitaligenin from ‘Digitalinum verum’. 1927 Jrnl. Biol. Chem. LXXIV. 789 The toxicities of the unhydrogenated ‘genins’ were of themselves not of the highest order. 1938 Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. (ed. 4) II. 381/1 All these drugs are non-nitrogenous glycosides of plant origin yielding on hydrolysis various sugars and a number of structurally similar aglycones or ‘genins’. 1959 L. F. & M. Fieser Steroids i. 4 The glycoside of which digitogenin is the aglycone, or genin, is a saponin. 1964 C. W. Shoppee Chem. Steroids (ed. 2) v. 367 Four aglycones: genin B, C21H30O4, genin D, C21H30O5, genin E, C21H30–32O5 and genin F, C21H34O5, isolated from D. grandiflora.., are probably digitenols. |