2024-09-19 08:45:12
Beta-carotene is one of the main carotenoids, pigments found naturally in plants and photosynthetic organisms, and is beneficial for health, with antioxidant, immunostimulating and cognitive-enhancing properties. In particular, beta-carotene is the first precursor of vitamin A in the human diet, as well as the first precursor of retinoids, chemical compounds with important functions in the body, including vision, cell growth and differentiation, the immune system.
A research group from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants (IBMCP), a joint institution of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), in Spain, has established a new method for the biofortification of leaves and other green cells, increasing their content of healthy substances such as beta-carotene.
Using tobacco plants (Nicotiana benthamiana) as a laboratory model and lettuce (Lactuca sativa) as an agricultural model, the team of Manuel Rodríguez Concepción, CSIC research professor at IBMCP, has managed to increase the beta-carotene content in the leaves without having negatively affects other important processes such as photosynthesis.
“Leaves need carotenoids such as beta-carotene in the photosynthetic centers of chloroplasts for their proper functioning,” explains the CSIC researcher. “When we produce too much beta-carotene in the chloroplasts, or too little, they stop working and the leaves end up dying. Our work has managed to produce and accumulate beta-carotene in cellular areas where it is not normally found, through a combination of technical procedures and treatments with high light,” he summarized.
Great loading and bioaccessibility
The results of this study show that it is possible to multiply beta-carotene levels in leaves by creating new sites to store it outside the photosynthetic complexes. In one way, they have managed to store high levels of beta-carotene in plastoglobules, lipid storage vesicles located between chloroplasts. These vesicles do not participate in photosynthesis and do not accumulate normal carotenoids.
“By stimulating the formation and development of plastoglobules with molecular techniques and heat treatments, not only to increase the accumulation of beta-carotene, but also its bioaccessibility, that is, the ease with which it can be extracted from food. matrix to get through our food system,” said Luca Morelli, from IBMCP and the first registrant of the project.
On the other hand, the research shows that the production of beta-carotene in plastoglobules can be combined with its production outside the chloroplasts by technical means. Thus, Pablo Pérez Colao, who is the author of the work, said, “beta-carotene accumulates in organs similar to plastoglobules but it is in the cytosol, the fluid that surrounds the organs and the cell base read.”
The combination of both techniques achieved an increase of up to 30 times in the levels of beta-carotene entered compared to that of untreated leaves. The high concentration of beta-carotene also provides a characteristic golden color to lettuce leaves.
Lettuce biofortified with beta-carotene has golden leaves. (Photo: Manuel Rodríguez Concepción and Luca Morelli)
In the opinion of the researchers, the discovery that beta-carotene can be produced and stored in very high levels and in a more bioaccessible way outside the places where it is normally found in the leaves, “represents a very important advance to bring food improved by the biofortification of vegetables such as lettuce, chard or spinach, without leaving their smell and taste.”
The study is titled “Improving pro-vitamin A content and bioaccessibility in leaves by combining metabolic biosynthesis and storage pathways with high light treatments.” And it was published in the academic journal Plant Journal. (Source: Isidoro García / CSIC)
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