Abstract
Carotenoids and apocarotenoids are diverse classes of compounds found in nature and are important natural pigments, nutraceuticals and flavour/aroma molecules. Improving the quality of crops is important for providing micronutrients to remote communities where dietary variation is often limited. Carotenoids have also been shown to have a significant impact on a number of human diseases, improving the survival rates of some cancers and slowing the progression of neurological illnesses. Furthermore, carotenoid-derived compounds can impact the flavour and aroma of crops and vegetables and are the origin of important developmental, as well as plant resistance compounds required for defence. In this review, we discuss the current research being undertaken to increase carotenoid content in plants and research the benefits to human health and the role of carotenoid derived volatiles on flavour and aroma of fruits and vegetables.
Highlights
Carotenoids are important natural pigments found in all plants and some bacteria, algae and fungi [1,2,3] and constitute one of the largest families of natural products, with more than 750 distinct compounds classified to date [4,5,6]
This review focuses on carotenoids and Apocarotenoid biosynthesis and benefits, their rolescomplimenting in plant development, the quality of food groups and their health plant development, the quality of food groups and their health benefits, complimenting the review published by Meléndez-Martínez et al [6]
An increase in the lycopene-derived volatiles citral (+50%), 6-methyl-5-hepten2-one (MHO; +122%) and the ζ-carotene-derived geranylacetone (+223%) were observed to be consistent with the increases in carotenoids in these fruit [22]. These results demonstrate that increasing carotenoid content in fruits, vegetables and other crops provides a substrate for the formation of important volatile and non-volatile organic compounds important to plant development, flavour and aroma
Summary
Carotenoids are important natural pigments found in all plants and some bacteria, algae and fungi [1,2,3] and constitute one of the largest families of natural products, with more than 750 distinct compounds classified to date [4,5,6]. Carotenoids are classified into two main groups, carotenes and the oxygenated xanthophylls Carotenes are linear, such as in the case for phytoene and lycopene, or contain a cyclized hydrocarbon ring, as seen in α-carotene and β-carotene (see Figure 1). Studies have found that a carotenoid-rich diet can reduce the risk of cervical and prostate cancers [12,13,14,15] Due to their often vibrant colours, carotenoids are generally considered to be simple pigments; carotenoids carry out important biological functions, such as the stabilisation of lipid membranes [16,17,18,19], the assembly of lipoprotein structures including plastoglobules and fibrils [20,21,22], photosynthetic light harvesting and protecting the photosystem from reactive oxygen species (ROS) mediated damage [23,24,25,26]. Letters A-N represent specific biosynthetic steps highlighted in the text
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
