Carotenoids roots

The carotenoids are the most widespread group of pigments in nature, with an estimated yield of 100 million tonnes per annum. They are present in all photosynthetic organisms and responsible for most of the yellow to red colours of fruits and flowers. The characteristic colours of many birds, insects and marine invertebrates are also due to the presence of carotenoids, which have originated in the diet. Animals are unable to synthesise carotenoids de novo, and so rely upon the diet as the source of these compounds. Carotenoids found in the human diet are primarily derived from crop plants, where the carotenoids are located in roots, leaves, shoots, seeds, fruit and flowers. To a lesser extent, carotenoids are also ingested from eggs, poultry and fish. Commercially, carotenoids are used as food colourants and in nutritional supplements (Table 13.1). Over recent years there has been considerable... 

Table 13.3 Carotenoid content of fresh fruits, roots and seeds...

Carrot crt genes from E. herbicola CaMV 35S 2-5 fold increase in root carotenoids Ausich et al., 1991 Hauptmann et al., 1997... 

Carotenoids were discovered during the nineteenth century. Wachen in 1831 proposed the term carotene for the hydrocarbon pigment crystallized from carrot roots Berzelius called the more polar yellow pigments extracted from autumn leaves xanthophylls and Tswett separated many pigments by column chromatography and called the whole group carotenoids. ... 

Baranska M, Baranski R, Schulz H and Nothnagel T. 2006. Tissue-specific accumulation of carotenoids in carrot roots. Planta 224 1028-1037. 

M. Baranska, H. Schulz, R. Baranski, T. Nothnagel and L.P. Christensen, In situ simultaneous analysis of polyacetylenes, carotenoids and polysaccharides in carrot roots, J. Agric. Food Chem., 53, 6565-6571 (2005). 

Buishand, J. G., and W. H. Gabelman. Investigation on the inheritance of root color and carotenoid content in carrot, Daucus carota. Diss Abstr Int B 1978 39 2656. 

Sonnen et al. (jl) observed the effect of root temperatures on the fruit color of two citrus cultivars. When comparisons were made with satsumas at 14°C and 30°C and with calamondins at 12°C and 25°C, there were higher amounts of carotenoids and better color in the peel from fruit grown at the lower root temperatures. 

Colonization of barley, wheat and maize and rice roots by Glomus intraradices resulted in strong induction of transcript levels of the pivotal enzymes of methylerythritol phosphate pathway of isoprenoid biosynthes i.e., 1 -deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate synthase (DXS) and 1 -deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR) (Walter et al., 2000). At the same time six cyclohexenone derivatives were characterized from mycorrhizal wheat and maize roots. DXS2 transcript levels are low in most tissues but are strongly stimulated in roots upon colonization by mycorrhizal fungi, correlated with accumulation of carotenoids and apocarotenoids (Walter et al., 2002). Some reports show that the AM symbiosis may cause an increase, decrease, or no change in the plant defense reactions (Guenoune et al., 2001 Mohr et al., 1998). 

Fester T., Schmidt D., Lohse S., Walter M.H., Giuliano G., Bramley P.M., Fraser P.d., Hause B., Strack D. Stimualtion of carotenoid metabolism in arbuscular mycorrhizal roots. Planta 2002 216 148-154. 

Carotenoids involved in photosynthesis are bound to and help stabilize chlorophyll-protein complexes, of which various types occur in the lamellar membranes of chloroplasts (Fig. 1-10). Carotenoids also are found in organelles known as chromoplasts, which are about the size of chloroplasts and are often derived from them. For instance, lycopene (red) is in tomato fruit chromoplasts, and a- and pi-carotenes (orange) occur in carrot root chromoplasts. A great diversity of carotenoids occurs in the chromoplasts of flower petals, which is important for attracting pollinators, and fruits, which aids in seed dispersal by attracting other animals. 

Carotenoids Carotenes (El60) Yellow to red Vegetables, fruits, seeds, roots, sweets, juices, oils... 

There are lots of research applications published regarding PLE and analysis of various compoimds in food and agricultural materials, for example pesticides in rapeseed (38), babyfood (39) and strawberries (40), lipids in com and oats (41) and in egg-containing foods (42), acrylamide in food samples (43), carotenoids in processed food (44), xanthones and flavanones in root bark (45), tocopherols in seeds and nuts (46), antioxidants in microalgae (47) and anthocyanins and total phenolics in dried red grape skin (48). More discussions... 

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