Analysis of carotenoid in seed of several oil crops

摘要

Carotenoids are one of the most important members of plant pigments and have diverse functions such as antioxidant,preventing cardiovascular disease and cancer, anti-aging. Enhanced carotenoid content in seeds of oil crops improves not only the oil nutrition and health-care value, but also the oil stability. A fast, accurate, simple and convenient method was set up to extract and measure total carotenoid content in rape seeds. In addition, the carotenoid contents in seeds of six major oil crops including rapeseed, peanut, soybean, sesame, perilla and safflowers were analyzed, and compared with that of carrot, pumpkin, corn and orange. The results showed that in these six oil crops, only rapeseed and soybean demonstrated characteristic absorption peaks. In addiction, extensive variation in carotenoid content was detected among rapeseed and soybean varieties. The content of carotenoid in seeds of rapeseed is close to that of carrot. These results lay a good foundation for further screening of high carotenoid content rapeseed germplasm and the improvement of rapeseed and soybean varieties with high carotenoid content.