Pigments as biomarkers

N. Chen, T.S. Bianchi, B.A. McKee and J.M. Bland, Historical trends of hypoxia on the Louisiana shelf application of pigments as biomarkers. Org. Geochem. 32 (2001) 543-561. 

Bennett, A. Bianchi, T.S., and Means, J.C. (2000) The effects of PAH contamination and grazing on the abundance and composition of microphytobenthos in salt marsh sediments (Pass Fourchon, LA, USA) II the use of plant pigments as biomarkers. Estuar. Coastal Shelf Sci. 50, 425-439. 

Bianchi, T.S., Baskaran, M., Delord, J., and Ravichandran, M. (1997a) Carbon cycling in a shallow turbid estuary of southeast Texas the use of plant pigments as biomarkers. Estuaries 20, 404-415. 

Bianchi, T.S., Rolfe, C., and Lambert, C.D. (1997d) Sources and composition of particulate organic carbon in the Baltic Sea the use of plant pigments and lignin-phenols as biomarkers. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 156, 25-31. 

HAPTOPHYTE BIOMARKER PIGMENTS OF THE TWO STRAINS ISOLATED FROM BELGIAN COASTAL WATERS EXPRESSED AS RATIOS TO CHLOROPHYLL-A... 

As with drugs and purified biomarkers, thermal- and photostability of botanical products are the factors that must be considered. Commercial dried extract and capsules of SJW were evaluated under harmonized test conditions (25). Photostability testing showed all the constituents to be photosensitive in the tested conditions. However, different opacity agents and pigments influenced the stability of the constituents. Amber containers had little effect on the photostability of the investigated constituents. Long-term thermal stability testing showed a shelf life of less than four months for hyperforins and hypericins, even when ascorbic and citric acids were added to the formulation. 

Carotenoids are an important group of tetraterpenoids consisting of a C40 chain with conjugated bonds that are found in bacteria, algae, fungi, and higher plants, and serve as the principal pigment biomarkers for class-specific taxonomic work in aquatic systems. 

Recently, a novel physical method for rapid and sensitive malaria detection in blood has been developed [46-50]. This method— ultraviolet LD MS—is based on the detection of heme (iron protoporphyrin) in blood as a qualitative and quantitative malaria biomarker, both in vitro [46] and in vivo [49,50]. In infected erythrocytes, the parasite sequesters heme from digested hemoglobin in a molecular crystal (malaria pigment or hemozoin). LDMS detects only heme from hemozoin in parasite-infected blood, and not heme, bound to hemoglobin... 

---