Fig. 1

PAC is more stable than curcumin. a Curcumin and PAC structures. Both molecules were incubated in phosphate buffer (0.1 M, pH 7.4) for different periods of time, and then were analyzed by HPLC. The arrows indicate the peaks corresponding to the intact PAC and curcumin molecules. b Histogram showing the proportion of the remaining molecules. Error bars represent means ± SD from three different experiments, *, P ≤ 0.01. c Balb/c mice were intraperitonealy injected with PAC and curcumin (100 mg/Kg). Blood samples were withdrawn directly from the heart of each mouse at the indicated periods of time. The resulting plasma extracts were dried and re-dissolved in methanol before injection onto HPLC for analysis. The error bars represent means +/- SD