Carotenoids from Foods of Plant, Animal and Marine Origin: An Efficient HPLC-DAD Separation Method.

Carotenoids are important antioxidant compounds, present in many foods of plant, animal and marine origin. The aim of the present study was to describe the carotenoid composition of tomato waste, prawn muscle and cephalothorax and avian (duck and goose) egg yolks through the use of a modified gradient elution HPLC method with a C reversed-phase column for the efficient separation and analysis of carotenoids and their -isomers. Elution time was reduced from 60 to 45 min without affecting the separation efficiency. All- lycopene predominated in tomato waste, followed by all--β-carotene, 13--lutein and all- lutein, while minor amounts of 9--lutein, 13--β-carotene and 9--β-carotene were also detected. Considering the above findings, tomato waste is confirmed to be an excellent source of recovering carotenoids, especially all- lycopene, for commercial use. Xanthophylls were the major carotenoids of avian egg yolks, all- lutein and all- zeaxanthin in duck and goose egg yolk, respectively. In the prawn, several carotenoids (zeaxanthin, all--lutein, canthaxanthin, cryptoxanthin, optical and geometrical astaxanthin isomers) were identified in considerable amounts by the same method. A major advantage of this HPLC method was the efficient separation of carotenoids and their -isomers, originating from a wide range of matrices.