Investigating carotenoid loss after drying and storage of

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1. Literature review
carotene and #-carotene. The provitamin A xanthophyll most commonly encountered is
β-cryptoxanthin (Rodriguez-Amaya 1997) Trans-β-carotene represents about 80-90% of
the total carotenoids in OFSP (Bengsston et al. 2008).
1.3.2 Incorporation of carotenoids in the plant structure and human absorption
The biosynthetic pathway of carotenoid formation in plant starts with the condensation
of pyrophosphate molecules, which is common in the formation of many terpenoid
compounds (Figure 1-12).
Figure 1-12: Carotenoid biosynthesis in plants. Bartley and Scolnik (1995). ABA:
Abscisic acid
"-carotene is formed from lycopene. Xanthophylls can be formed from "-carotene by
epoxidation. All these biosynthetic reactions are catalysed by a variety of enzymes
(Bartley and Scolnik 1995). Chromatographic analysis of sweet potato (variety