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From the plant

CBCACannabichromenic acid

An acid the plant makes from CBGA, the precursor of CBC; its pharmacology is almost unexplored.

Unscheduled
Level of detail

Harm-reduction warning

No characterised human dose: animal / in vitro data only. Effect profile, safety margin and acute toxicity are not documented in human clinical practice. Extremely potent compound: severe effects, seizures and deaths reported in the literature.

C₂₂H₃₀O₄

CAS 20408-52-0

Family
PhytocannabinoidPrincipal
Origin
Biosynthesis (plant)
First described
1968
Molar mass
358.48 g/mol

Updated on

In plain terms

CBCA is the acid form of CBC, made by the plant from CBGA. Heat or time turn it into CBC. Almost nothing is known about its own effects.

Receptors and activity

    Bar length follows the measured value (Ki, Kd, EC50 or IC50), on one scale shared by every entry, from 100 µM to 0.1 nM. A target with no cited value has no bar.

    Pharmacology

    Cannabichromenic acid was described in 1968 by Shoyama et al. as the native form of cannabichromene (Chem. Pharm. Bull. 16:1157). It is one of the four acids formed by a characterised enzyme: CBCA synthase, purified in 1998, converts CBGA, and more slowly cannabinerolic acid, into CBCA by direct dehydrogenation (Morimoto et al., 1998). Hanuš et al. (2016) count CBC and its acid among the plant's four major cannabinoids, whereas Walsh et al. (2021) class CBC as minor. Heat or ageing decarboxylate CBCA to CBC; exposed to light during storage, it can also give cannabicyclolic acid (CBLA), an artefact (Radwan et al., 2021). Its own pharmacology is almost unexplored: no CB1 or CB2 binding data were found; in vitro it is transported by ABCB1 (P-glycoprotein), without inhibiting that transporter or ABCG2 (Etchart et al., 2022). No controlled human data were found.

    Key sources.

    History

    Source
    Cannabis: a cannabinoid acid produced by the plant (CBCA synthase)

    Biosynthetic pathway

    CBCA synthase catalyses the oxidocyclisation of CBGA, and more slowly of cannabinerolic acid, into CBCA; the reaction proceeds by direct dehydrogenation, with neither molecular oxygen nor peroxide (Morimoto et al., 1998). Heat or ageing decarboxylate it to CBC.

    Classification

    Family, origin and source verification

    Family

    Phytocannabinoid › Principal

    Presence in the plant

    Enzymatic biosynthesis in the plant

    Chemistry

    Type CBC · C5 side chain · acid form

    Verification

    Every fact on this entry was checked against its primary sources on 20 October 2026.

    Wikipedia (English)

    Cannabichromenic acid (new tab)

    Article paired by the molecule's structure (InChIKey), revision read on 19 October 2026. Read as a second opinion, never cited as a source.

    References

    1. Shoyama et al. 1968, Chem Pharm Bull 16:1157: first description (new tab)DOI 10.1248/cpb.16.1157
    2. Morimoto et al. 1998, Phytochemistry: CBCA synthase (new tab)PMID 9862135
    3. Etchart et al. 2022, Eur J Pharmacol: CBC/CBCA and ABCB1/ABCG2 transporters (new tab)PMID 35306000
    4. Radwan et al. 2021, Molecules: CBC type, CBLA artefact (new tab)PMID 34066753
    5. Hanuš et al. 2016, Nat Prod Rep: major constituents (new tab)PMID 27722705

    Identifiers

    Names

    Common name
    Cannabichromenic acid
    IUPAC name
    5-hydroxy-2-methyl-2-(4-methylpent-3-enyl)-7-pentylchromene-6-carboxylic acid
    Other names
    CBC-A

    Identifiers

    Formula
    C₂₂H₃₀O₄
    CAS
    20408-52-0
    PubChem CID
    3084339(new tab)
    ChEBI
    167557(new tab)
    InChIKey
    HRHJHXJQMNWQTF-UHFFFAOYSA-N
    SMILES
    CCCCCC1=CC2=C(C=CC(O2)(C)CCC=C(C)C)C(=C1C(=O)O)O

    Machine-readable entry (JSON)

    LLM ingestion format: a structured superset of the entry (identifiers, binding, versioned legal status). Full corpus.