File:BetaCarotene-3d.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
carotene
Sign in to saveAlso known as carotenes
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.]]
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.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
In the Vinony graph
Vinony's link graph records 301 inbound references to carotene, and connects out to carotenoid, β-carotene and corpus luteum.
It is catalogued under topics including Carotenoids, E-number additives and Food colorings.
Vinony links it to 60 Wikipedia language editions.
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- Commons category
- Carotenes
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~13 min read
Encyclopedic overview
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.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “carotene” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.