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Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods
Published in Robert E.C. Wildman, Richard S. Bruno, Handbook of Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods, 2019
Different foods have different kinds and relative amounts of carotenoids. Also, the carotenoid content can vary seasonally and during the ripening process. For example, peaches contain violaxanthin, cryptoxanthin, β-carotene, persicaxanthin, neoxanthin, and as many as 25 other carotenoids; apricots contain mostly α-carotene, β-carotene, and lycopene; and carrots contain about 50–55 parts per million of carotene in total, mostly α-carotene, β-carotene, and γ-carotene, as well as lycopene. Many vegetable oils also contain carotenoids, with palm oil containing the most. For example, crude palm oil contains up to 0.2% carotenoids. Meanwhile, there are a few synthetic carotenoids, including β-apo-8′-carotenal (apocarotenal), and canthaxanthin. Beta-Apo-8′-carotenal (apocarotenal) imparts a light reddish-orange color, and canthaxanthin imparts an orange-red to red color.
Sjögren-Larsson syndrome: a complex metabolic disease with a distinctive ocular phenotype
Published in Ophthalmic Genetics, 2019
Samiksha Fouzdar-Jain, Donny W Suh, William B Rizzo
The lipid composition of the SLS retina is not known, however, the retina uniquely possesses high concentrations of carotinoids, such as ß-carotene, lycopene and the macular pigments lutein and zeaxanthin (88). Macular pigment is derived from dietary plant sources and transported to the eye where it is taken up and concentrated in the retina (89). These yellow lipophilic molecules are structurally characterized by a long-chain carbon backbone with conjugated double bonds, which are susceptible to photo-oxidative damage by reactive oxygen species (ROS), and act as antioxidants to protect other more critical molecules in the retina (90). When ROS attack macular pigment and other carotenoids, a variety of fatty aldehyde breakdown products (apocarotenals) with varying chain lengths can be generated. In addition to this non-enzymatic process, enzyme-mediated asymmetrical cleavage of ß-carotene generates a series of ß-apocarotinal products (91). Irrespective of their source, certain long chain apocarotenals are potential substrates for FALDH. If not rapidly eliminated, these aldehydes would be harmful to various retinal cells, including Müller cells and RPE. It has been shown that long-chain fatty aldehydes are cytotoxic to cultured SLS fibroblasts (85), SLS keratinocytes (92) and other mammalian cells (93). Apocarotenals generated from oxidized ß-carotene have also been shown to be highly cytotoxic to cultured human RPE cells by inducing apoptosis (94). It is therefore tempting to speculate that deficiency of FALDH in SLS leads to accumulation of various toxic fatty aldehydes in the retina, including ß-apocarotenals (Figure 2). Aldehyde-mediated cytotoxicity may thereby account for the thinner retinal layers, cystic macular degeneration and/or RPE atrophy in SLS. Whether the increased lipofuscin granules seen in the SLS RPE are composed of protein complexes with apocarotenal or other fatty aldehydes is not known.