Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic separation of lutein and lutein fatty acid esters from marigold flower petal powder
✍ Scribed by Javier D.L. Rivas
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1991
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 358 KB
- Volume
- 464
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1873-3778
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✦ Synopsis
Lutein is a common carotenoid in nature, occurring in all green structures of plants and also in many flower petalsl. It is frequently used in industry as a natural food colorant, for instance in poultry feeds, to enhance pigmentation of the skin and egg yolk2. Currently, the commonest commercial source of lutein is the flower of the marigold plant Tugetes erect2, where it is found esterified with one or two fatty acids, and constitutes about 90% (w/w) of the petals4.
Free xanthophylls and their esters not only have different stabilities but also differ widely in their ability to act as coloring agents in food technology5. Hence it is of great interest to have methods to separate and determine lutein and lutein esters in every step of the processing of this coloring agent (i.e., in raw materials, during saponification procedures, etc).
The aim of this work was to devise a fast, sensitive and quantitative method to investigate the pigment composition of lutein sources and the pigment composition of these materials during processing. In recent years high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been shown to be a useful and accurate technique for separating and identifying carotenoid@. We have developed a new reversed-phase HPLC method for separating in a single step lutein and the different lutein fatty acid esters in colour sources and in other coloured products. This method could also be of general interest in the study and control of xanthophyll saponification processes.
EXPERIMENTAL
Extraction and sample preparation
Carotenoids from marigold (Tagetes erectu) petal powder were extracted with acetone overnight in a tightly closed flask according to the general method of Britton'. Carotenoids were transferred to n-hexane and the n-hexane fractions were dried over anhydrous sodium sulphate and evaporated to dryness in a stream of nitrogen. Samples were dissolved in ethyl acetate and passed through a Sep-Pak Cl8 cartidge (Millipore) in order to remove any substance that may stick non-reversibly to the octadecylsilane. Samples were then filtered twice through a 0.45~pm HVLP Millipore filter to remove insoluble particles before analysis.