Xantophyill esters: isolation, separation and enzymatic hydrolysis.

Abstract

Carotenoids are natural pigments. produced by highe r plants. some bacteria and algae with important antioxidant properties. Carotenoid xantho phylls are found in higher plants in esterified for m. The fatty acids which esterified the carotenoids are mainly s aturated fatty acids. but in some plants unsaturate d fatty acids can also be present in low amounts (Breithaupt and Bamedi. 2001).The highest carotenol esters content is usually associated with senescence and fruit ripeni ng (Britton. 1995; Minguez-Mosquera et al.. 1994). Lipase from Candida rugosa is a universal lipolytic biocatalyst and cleaves ca rotenoid esters with high yields (Liu et al.. 1998; Breithaupt. 2000). In this study we separate de carotenoid esters from three plants: Physalis alkekengi L.. Tagetes erecta and Seabuckthorne berries ; we used lipases from Candida rugosa and from porcine pancreas and we compared the yield of hydrolysis of β-cryptoxanthin esters separated from Physalis alkekengi L. sepals. HPLC-PDA was used for separation and quantification of carotenoid esters and for monitoring the ester hydrolysis. It can be observed that in the case of enzymatic hy drolysis of β-cryptoxanthin esters. porcine lipases has lowest efficiency than lipases from Candida rugosa . The yield of enzymatic hydrolysis with porcine li pases is not very different after 24 hours (81 % respectivel y 71 %).