University of Tulsa, Department of Biological Sciences, Tulsa, OK, United States.
University of Tulsa, Department of Biological Sciences, Tulsa, OK, United States.
Methods Enzymol. 2022;670:459-497. doi: 10.1016/bs.mie.2022.01.015. Epub 2022 Mar 11.
Carotenoid pigments serve many endogenous functions in organisms, but some of the more fascinating are the external displays of carotenoids in the colorful red, orange and yellow plumages of birds. Since Darwin, biologists have been curious about the selective advantages (e.g., mate attraction) of having such ornate features, and, more recently, advances in biochemical methods have permitted researchers to explore the composition and characteristics of carotenoid pigments in feathers. Here we review contemporary methods for extracting and analyzing carotenoids in bird feathers, with special attention to the difficulties of removal from the feather keratin matrix, the possibility of feather carotenoid esterification and the strengths and challenges of different analytical methods like high-performance liquid chromatography and Raman spectroscopy. We also add an experimental test of current common extraction methods (e.g., mechanical, thermochemical) and find significant differences in the recovery of specific classes of carotenoids, suggesting that no single approach is best for all pigment or feather types.
类胡萝卜素色素在生物体中具有许多内源性功能，但其中更引人注目的是它们在鸟类丰富多彩的红色、橙色和黄色羽毛中的外部表现。自达尔文以来，生物学家一直对拥有如此华丽特征的选择优势（例如，吸引配偶）感到好奇，而最近生化方法的进步也使研究人员能够探索羽毛中类胡萝卜素色素的组成和特征。在这里，我们回顾了用于提取和分析鸟类羽毛中类胡萝卜素的现代方法，特别关注从羽毛角蛋白基质中去除的困难、羽毛类胡萝卜素酯化的可能性以及高效液相色谱和拉曼光谱等不同分析方法的优缺点。我们还对当前常见的提取方法（例如机械法、热化学法）进行了实验测试，发现不同方法对特定类类胡萝卜素的回收率存在显著差异，这表明没有一种方法适用于所有类型的色素或羽毛。
