carotene
Sign in to savethumb|upright=1.4|A 3-dimensional stick diagram of β-carotene thumb|Carotene is responsible for the orange colour of carrots and the colours of many other fruits and vegetables and even some animals. thumb|Lesser flamingo|Lesser flamingos in the [[Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania. The pink colour of wild flamingos is due to astaxanthin (a carotenoid) they absorb from their diet of brine shrimp. If fed a carotene-free diet they become white.]]
AI overview
Carotene is a pigment that gives carrots and many other fruits, vegetables, and animals their orange and other vibrant colors. It's an important dietary compound that animals, including flamingos, obtain from food and use to develop their coloring, as evidenced by the fact that flamingos fed a carotene-free diet lose their pink color and become white.
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Article
15 sectionsContents
- Molecular structure
- History
- Dietary sources
- Forms of carotene
- β-Carotene and physiology
- β-Carotene and cancer
- β-Carotene and photosensitivity
- Carotenemia
- Production
- Synthesis
- Nomenclature
- Food additive
- See also
- References
- External links
thumb|upright=1.4|A 3-dimensional stick diagram of β-carotene thumb|Carotene is responsible for the orange colour of carrots and the colours of many other fruits and vegetables and even some animals. thumb|Lesser flamingo|Lesser flamingos in the [[Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania. The pink colour of wild flamingos is due to astaxanthin (a carotenoid) they absorb from their diet of brine shrimp. If fed a carotene-free diet they become white.]]
The term carotene (also carotin, from the Latin carota, "carrot") is used for many related unsaturated hydrocarbon substances having the formula C40Hx, which are synthesized by plants but in general cannot be made by animals (with the exception of some aphids and spider mites which acquired the synthesizing genes from fungi). Carotenes are photosynthetic pigments important for photosynthesis.