Homocapsaicin
Homocapsaicin is a capsaicinoid and analog and congener of capsaicin in chili peppers. Like capsaicin it is an irritant. Homocapsaicin accounts for about 1% of the total capsaicinoids mixture and has about half the pungency of capsaicin. Pure homocapsaicin is a lipophilic colorless odorless crystalline to waxy compound. On the Scoville scale it has 8,600,000 SHU. Homocapsaicin isolated from chili pepper has been found in two isomeric forms, both with a carbon-carbon double bond at the 6 position on the 10-carbon acyl chain. One isomer has an additional carbon, a methyl group, at the 8 position and the other has a methyl group at the 9 position. Homocapsaicin is the more abundant isomer. Homocapsaicin with the double bond at the 7 position has never been found in nature, though its structure is widely reported on the Internet and in the scientific literature. Details of this misidentification have been published.
