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(Journal of Nutrition. 2000;130:1996-2001.)
© 2000 The American Society for Nutritional Sciences


Article

ß-Carotene Is Converted Primarily to Retinoids in Rats In Vivo1 ,2

Arun B. Barua3 and James A. Olson

Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011

3To whom correspondence should be addressed.


    ABSTRACT
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 REFERENCES
 
ß-Carotene might be converted oxidatively to vitamin A– active products in animals by the following three possible routes: 1) central cleavage, 2) sequential excentric cleavage or 3) random cleavage. Central cleavage is strongly favored by stoichiometric studies with tissue homogenates in vitro. To examine the relative importance of these pathways in rats in vivo, an oral dose (5.6 µmol) of all-trans ß-carotene in oil was given to vitamin A–deficient (-A) and to vitamin A–sufficient (+A) adult female Sprague-Dawley rats. Serum and several tissues were analyzed before and 3 h after dosing. The primary products of ß-carotene found in the intestine, serum and liver were retinol, retinyl esters and retinoic acid. Two minor oxidation products of ß-carotene, namely, 5,6-epoxy-ß-carotene and a partially characterized hydroxy-ß-carotene, were present in the stomach and its contents as well as in intestinal preparations. In the intestine, including its contents, of -A rats, very minor amounts of 5,6-epoxyretinyl palmitate and of ß-apocarotenals (8', 10', 12', 14') were identified. The total amount of the ß-apocarotenoids, however, was <5% of the retinoids formed in the intestine from ß-carotene during the same period. Another ß-carotene derivative, with a spectrum similar to that of semi-ß-carotenone, citranaxanthin and ß-apo-6'-carotenal, was also found in the intestinal extract of a -A rat. ß-Apocarotenals, ß-apocarotenols, ß-apocarotenyl esters and ß-apocarotenoic acids were not detected in tissues of +A rats nor in other tissues of -A rats. These findings agree with the view that central cleavage is by far the major pathway for the formation of vitamin A from ß-carotene in healthy rats in vivo.


KEY WORDS: • ß-carotene • retinoids • ß-apocarotenals • rats • central cleavage


    INTRODUCTION
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 REFERENCES
 
Although vitamin A has been known as an essential micronutrient for almost 90 years, vitamin A deficiency is still a major health problem in much of the world (Underwood 1994Citation ). The major dietary source of vitamin A in humans consuming primarily vegetarian diets is provitamin A carotenoids, of which ß-carotene is the major component.

In mammalian tissues in vitro, provitamin A carotenoids are converted mainly into vitamin A by central oxidative cleavage, which is catalyzed by the enzyme carotenoid 15,15'-dioxygenase (EC 1.13.11.21) (Devery and Milborrow 1994Citation , Duszka et al. 1996Citation , Goodman and Huang 1965Citation , Lakshman et al. 1989Citation , Lakshman and Okoh 1993Citation , Lakshmanan et al. 1972Citation ;1> Nagao et al. 1996Citation , Olson and Hayaishi 1965Citation , Olson 1999Citation , van Vliet et al. 1996Citation ). A minor pathway in healthy mammals in vivo and in vitro is stepwise oxidative cleavage from one end of the polyene chain, presumably via a sequence of ß-apocarotenals, to yield retinal (Ganguly and Sastry 1985Citation , Gessler et al. 1998Citation , Glover 1960Citation , ;2>Sharma et al. 1977Citation , Tang et al. 1991Citation , Wang et al. 1991Citation , Wang and Krinsky 1998Citation ) These pathways are depicted in Figure 1Citation . The polyene chain of the carotenoid might also be cleaved randomly, probably by nonspecific lipoxygenases and chemical oxidants. In oxidative stress, central cleavage tends to be depressed and other oxidative transformations of carotenoids tend to be enhanced (Gomboeva et al. 1998Citation , Yeum et al. 1995Citation ).



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Figure 1. Central and stepwise cleavage pathways for the oxidative conversion of all-trans ß-carotene to retinal. Semi-ß-carotenone, citranaxanthin, and ß-apo-6'-carotenal, which may possibly be intermediates, are in brackets.

 
Most past studies on ß-carotene cleavage have been conducted with tissue homogenates in vitro. Although the interpretation of in vivo studies is challenging (Glover et al. 1948Citation , Mattson et al. 1947Citation , West and Castenmiller 1998Citation ), we decided to determine the extent to which retinal, ß-apocarotenals and their metabolites, as well as other products, arise as a result of administering ß-carotene to both vitamin A-sufficient (+A)4 and vitamin A–deficient (-A) rats in vivo. Our findings are summarized in this paper.


    MATERIALS AND METHODS
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 REFERENCES
 
Chemicals.

Methanol, dichloromethane, 2-propanol, acetonitrile and ethyl acetate were supplied by Fisher Scientific (Fair Lawn, NJ). HPLC-grade solvents were used whenever available.

All-trans ß-carotene in the form of water-soluble beadlets, ß-apo-8'-carotenal, ß-apo-10'-carotenal and ß-apo-12'-carotenal were gifts from Hoffmann-La Roche, (Nutley, NJ). The oral dose of ß-carotene was prepared as follows: ß-carotene beadlets (1 g, 10% ß-carotene, wt/wt) were ground with water (3 mL). When a clear solution was obtained, peanut oil (3 mL) was added and ground well to obtain a uniform solution. The purity and concentration of the ß-carotene solution were checked by spectrophotometry and by HPLC.

Derivatives.

The ß-apo-carotenals were reduced to the corresponding ß-apo-carotenols by treatment with NaBH4 (Barua and Ghosh 1972Citation ). ß-Apo-carotenoic acids were prepared by oxidation with Tollen’s reagent, as described in the conversion of retinal to retinoic acid (RA) (Barua and Barua 1964Citation ). 5,6-Epoxyretinyl palmitate was prepared by treating retinyl palmitate with 3-chloroperoxybenzoic acid (Barua 1999Citation ). The ß-apo-carotenols and ß-apo-carotenoic acids were purified by TLC on silica gel plates, and then tested for purity by HPLC. The oximes of ß-apocarotenals were prepared by reaction with hydroxylamine, as described for the preparation of retinal oximes (Landers 1989Citation ), and tested by HPLC for purity.

Animals.

Weanling female Sprague-Dawley rats were obtained through University Laboratory Animal Resources. All experiments with animals were in accord with NIH Guidelines for the Use of Animals and were approved by the University Committee on the Use of Animals in Research. The rats were kept in individual cages, and fed either a vitamin A–deficient diet (Diet No. 904646) (-A) or a vitamin A–sufficient diet (+A) of the same composition, both supplied by ICN, Cleveland, OH. Both diets (g/kg) contained sucrose (325), cornstarch (325), vitamin-free casein (180), brewer’s yeast (80), cottonseed oil (50), and salt mixture #2 (40). Both diets also contained viosterol (4400 IU/kg), whereas only the vitamin A–supplemented diet contained retinyl palmitate (14,000 IU/kg, or 14.7 µmol/kg diet). The vitamin A–supplemented ICN diet contained only 3.5% of the retinyl palmitate (400,000 IU or 420 µmol/kg diet) present in the AIN-76A and AIN-93 diets (Reeves 1997Citation ). Although it supports growth, this ICN diet does not induce vitamin A storage in intestinal tissue and minimizes that in the liver. The weights of rats were recorded at regular intervals.

The rats fed the -A diet showed signs of vitamin A deficiency, e.g., a weight plateau, after 5 wk. Blood (0.5 mL) was collected from the tail vein of each rat before administering the ß-carotene.;3> Rats from each group (n = 3) were killed at zero time to obtain baseline values. Then, each rat (+A and -A) was given a single oral dose of ß-carotene (5.6 µmol or 3 mg) in 0.18 mL peanut oil. The -A and +A rats (n = 3/group) were killed under ether anesthesia 3 h after the dose. To maximize the formation of ß-apocarotenals, one -A rat was killed 1 h after dosing. Blood, collected from the heart, was allowed to clot, and serum was obtained by centrifugation at 1200 x g for 15 min.;4> The stomach, small intestine and liver were removed and weighed. Serum and tissues were kept frozen at -20°C.

Serum.

Retinoids and carotenoids in serum were extracted under yellow light at 4°C by a slight modification of a published procedure (Barua et al. 1998Citation ). In brief, serum (500 µL) was mixed with ethanol (1 mL), dilute acetic acid (3.3 mol/L, 0.1 mL), retinyl acetate in ethanol (internal standard, 7 µmol/L, 20–100 µL) that contained BHT (46 µmol/L), ethyl acetate (1 mL) and hexane (1 mL). The mixture was vortexed (30 s) and then centrifuged (1200 x g) for 1 min. The supernatant solution was removed, and the pellet was extracted with hexane (1 mL). The pooled extracts were vortexed with water (0.5 mL) and then centrifuged, as indicated above. The organic extract was evaporated to dryness under a slow stream of argon. The residue was dissolved in a mixture of 2-propanol/dichloromethane (2:1, v/v; 100 µL). The recovery of the internal standard, retinyl acetate, was 88–95%. All reported serum values were correspondingly corrected. The efficiency of extraction of ß-apo-8'-carotenal was similar to retinyl acetate under the same conditions.

Liver, small intestine with its contents and stomach with its contents.

The extraction procedure was a slight modification of a published procedure (Barua et al. 1998Citation ). The tissues were first chopped and minced. Liver (0.2–0.5 g) or 1 g small intestine or stomach (including contents) was placed in a mortar. The tissue was ground to a powder with anhydrous sodium sulfate. After the addition of 2 volumes (v/wt) of 2-propanol/dichloromethane (1:1), the mixture was ground further with a pestle and then allowed to stand for 2–3 min. The extract was filtered, and the residue was extracted with dichloromethane 3–4 times, as described. The pooled extract, after being filtered, was evaporated to dryness in a rotary evaporator, and the residue was dissolved in 2-propanol/dichloromethane (1:1, 0.5 mL). An aliquot (50–100 µL) was analyzed by HPLC. The recovery of the internal standard, retinyl acetate, was 88–95%. All reported tissue values were correspondingly corrected. The recovery of ß-apo-8'-carotenal under the same conditions was similar to retinyl acetate.

Reverse-phase gradient HPLC.

For reverse-phase gradient HPLC (Barua et al. 1998Citation ), Waters Associates (Milford, MA) pumps (model 510), an autosampler (WISP model 717 Plus), a pump control module, a photodiode array detector (model 996) and the Millenium 2010 chromatography manager were used. A Rainin (Woburn, MA) Microsorb-MV 3 µm C18 (3.6 x 100 mm) column was used. A 15-min linear gradient of methanol/water (7:3, v/v containing 10 mmol/L ammonium acetate) to methanol/dichloromethane (4:1, v/v) or to acetonitrile/dichloromethane/methanol (95:10:5, v/v/v) at a flow rate of 0.6 mL/min was followed by isocratic elution with the latter solvent mixture for another 30 min. The gradient was then reversed to initial conditions in 5 min. Thereafter, the column was equilibrated with the initial solvent for 10 min before the next injection was made.

The limit of detection for retinol and retinyl esters by HPLC was 1.8 pmol and for RA and ß-carotene was 3.3 pmol when an injected aliquot of 100 µL was used.

Statistical analysis.

Means were compared using Student’s t test (Snedecor and Cochran 1989Citation ).


    RESULTS
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 REFERENCES
 
Carotenoids and retinoids in serum after a dose of ß-carotene

Before dosing, the serum of -A rats had only a trace of retinol, whereas the serum of +A rats had normal retinol levels (Table 1Citation ). After the dose of ß-carotene, the retinol level in -A rats increased significantly (P < 0.01) at 3 h, whereas that in the serum of +A rats rose only slightly (P < 0.10) (Table 1)Citation . Retinyl esters reached much higher concentrations (P < 0.001) at 3 h in the serum of -A rats than of +A rats. RA also increased more (P < 0.01) at 3 h in the serums of -A rats than in that of +A rats (Table 1)Citation . Serum ß-carotene concentrations rose similarly in -A and +A rats. No other metabolites of ß-carotene, such as the ß-apocarotenals, were detected in any serum sample of either -A or +A rats.


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Table 1. An oral dose (5.6 µmol) of ß-carotene in oil increases the concentrations of retinoids and ß-carotene at 3 h in the serum of vitamin A–deficient and vitamin A–sufficient rats1

 
Carotenoids and retinoids in tissues

    Stomach. In the stomach, including its contents, in both -A and +A rats, ß-carotene rose from undetectable amounts at zero time to 13.5 ± 0.53 nmol/g in -A rats and to 7.2 ± 0.65 nmol/g in +A rats at 3 h.

Two other carotenoids were present in stomach extract at 3 h at ~10% of the concentration of ß-carotene. One of these compounds was identified as 5,6-epoxy-ß-carotene on the basis of its coelution with and spectral properties ({lambda}max 475, 445 nm) similar to authentic 5,6-epoxy-ß-carotene (Barua 1999Citation ). The 5,6-epoxy group of the carotenoid was further characterized by a hypsochromic shift in spectra on treatment with 0.1 mol/L HCl, indicative of the isomerization of the 5,6-epoxy group to a 5,8-furanoid group ({lambda}max 455, 425 nm) (Barua 1999Citation ). The 5,8-furanoid form of epoxy-ß-carotene was not found in the stomach contents. The other carotenoid resembled a monohydroxy-ß-carotene. Its spectrum was identical to that of ß-carotene, and its retention time was the same as that of ß-cryptoxanthin. Retinoids were not detected in the stomach and its contents.

    Small intestine. In the small intestine, including its contents, ß-carotene rose from nondetectable amounts at zero time to relatively high amounts at 3 h (Table 2Citation ). Retinoids also increased markedly. Although the overall amounts of retinol plus its esters that were present 3 h after dosing were not different in -A and +A rats, the amount of RA present in -A rats at 3 h was much higher than that found in +A rats (P < 0.001). A typical chromatogram, obtained at 330 nm for retinoids and 445 nm for carotenoids, of the small intestinal extract of -A rats 3 h after the dose of ß-carotene is shown in Figure 2ACitation and BCitation . The spectra of RA, retinol, retinyl palmitate and ß-carotene, which were the major peaks in these chromatograms, are shown in Figure 2CCitation . The unmarked peak eluting at about 24 min in Figure 2ACitation was tentatively identified as 5,6-epoxyretinyl palmitate by its chromatographic behavior and {lambda}max (325, 313, 295 nm). The peaks eluting near 30 min were retinyl esters ({lambda}max = 326 nm) of unidentified fatty acid composition. Because of the large amount of ß-carotene in the analyzed aliquot (Fig. 2BCitation ), however, considerable absorption in this elution region was also noted at 330 nm (Fig. 2ACitation ). A small amount of retinyl ester, probably retinyl stearate, was also present in this peak at 330 nm (Fig. 2ACitation ). Only trace amounts of other products were present.


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Table 2. An oral dose (5.6 µmol) of ß-carotene increases the amounts of retinoids and ß-carotene at 3 h in the small intestine and its contents of vitamin A–deficient and vitamin A–sufficient rats1

 


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Figure 2. Separation by HPLC of ß-carotene and its products from the intestine and its contents of vitamin A–deficient (-A) rats 3 h after oral dosing with ß-carotene. (A) Peaks detected at 330 nm. (B) Peaks detected at 445 nm. (C) Spectra of major detected peaks. Abbreviations: BC, ß-carotene; EC, epoxy-ß-carotene; RA, retinoic acid; ROL, retinol; RP, retinyl palmitate

 
    Liver. The carotenoid and retinoid compositions of the livers of -A and +A rats before and 3 h after the dose of ß-carotene are presented in Table 3Citation . In -A and +A rats, at 3 h, retinol and retinyl esters increased as expected from baseline values; the increase was significant (P < 0.001) for -A rats but not for +A rats because of their endogenous reserves. Furthermore, the liver concentrations of ß-carotene, RA and retinal (0.88 ± 0.50 vs. <0.1 ± 0.1 nmol/g) were higher (P < 0.05) at 3 h in +A than in -A rats.


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Table 3. An oral dose (5.6 µmol) of ß-carotene increases the amounts of retinoids and carotenoids at 3 h in the liver of vitamin A–deficient and vitamin A–sufficient rats1

 
    Minor products of ß-carotene cleavage in the small intestine, including its contents. In the chromatogram (Fig. 2BCitation ) of intestinal extracts, which included the lumen contents, several tiny peaks that absorbed at 445 nm eluted between retinol (20 min) and epoxy-ß-carotene (30 min). In preliminary studies, these peaks were slightly more prominent at 1 h than at 3 h. To examine these compounds more fully, a fivefold (5 g) greater amount of the intestine and its contents from a -A rat was extracted at 1 h after dosing and a fourfold larger aliquot of the final extract was chromatographed. As shown in Figure 3ACitation , thirteen peaks appeared in this region (20–28 min); seven of these have been tentatively identified, namely, retinal, four ß-apocarotenals (8', 10', 12' and 14'), 5,6 epoxy-ß-carotene, and a hydroxycarotenoid. The absorption maxima and E1 cm1% values of the ß-apocarotenoids are summarized in Table 4Citation , and the spectra of six of the isolated ß-carotene metabolites are shown in Figure 3BCitation . Each of the ß-apocarotenals isolated from the intestinal preparation was reduced to its alcohol and converted to its oxime. As shown in Table 4Citation , the observed absorption maxima of these derivatives agreed well with literature values, particularly in view of the fact that different solvents were used in these determinations. The observed absorption maxima for the ß-apo-carotenoic acids (8', 10', 12') in Table 4Citation , however, were derived from chemically oxidized reference compounds, not from ß-carotene metabolites.



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Figure 3. Separation of products of ß-carotene in a concentrated extract of the intestine and its contents from a vitamin A–deficient (-A) rat 1 h after oral dosing with ß-carotene. (A) HPLC separation with detection at 425 nm. (B) Spectra of retinal and ß-apocarotenoid fractions. Abbreviations: EC, epoxy-ß-carotene; OH, monohydroxy-ß-carotene; RAL, retinal; 14', 12', 10', 8', ß-apo-carotenals. X, the unidentified carotenoid with the spectrum of semi-ß-carotenone.

 

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Table 4. Absorption maxima and extinction coefficients of ß-apocarotenoids1

 
By use of the E1 cm1% values for the reference compounds, the amounts of various ß-apocarotenals present per gram of intestinal tissue at 1 h were as follows (nmol/g): 14' (0.09), 12' (0.04), 10' (0.12), and 8' (0.05), or a total of 0.30 nmol/g. In the same extract, the concentration of retinal was 0.28 nmol/g. At 3 h in +A rats, however, these compounds were not detected. Furthermore, no ß-apocarotenyl esters, which are found in significant amounts in human sera after the oral administration of 8'-ß-apocarotenal (Zeng et al. 1992Citation ), or ß-apocarotenoic acids were detected in the intestinal extract of +A or -A rats at 3 h.


    DISCUSSION
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 REFERENCES
 
Orally administered ß-carotene is converted to several products in rats in vivo. After the single oral dose of ß-carotene, small quantities of 5,6-epoxy-ß-carotene and of a polar carotenoid resembling monohydroxy-ß-carotene were identified in the stomach and its contents. These products were most likely formed by chemical oxidation in the presence of oxygen, although 5,6-epoxy-ß-carotene has also been identified as a product of ß-carotene incubation with intestinal homogenates (Handelman et al. 1991Citation , Tang et al. 1991Citation ). No retinoids were detected in the stomach and its contents.

Because the small intestine is a major site of the conversion of ß-carotene to vitamin A in vivo (Glover et al. 1948Citation , Mattson et al. 1947Citation , Parker et al. 1994Citation ), this study focused on the isolation and characterization of products of ß-carotene in this tissue and its contents. Retinol and retinyl esters were major products at 3 h, together with smaller amounts of RA (Table 2)Citation . The net increase of retinoids (12.7 ± 4.8 nmol/g) in the intestine of -A rats at 3 h was somewhat higher than in +A rats (9.15 ± 2.9 nmol/g), in keeping with the observation that the activity of the intestinal central cleavage enzyme is increased in vitamin A deficiency (van Vliet et al. 1996Citation ).

Retinal and several ß-apo-carotenals were also detected at 3 h as very minor metabolites in the extracts of small intestines and their contents of -A rats, but not of +A rats. By use of a sensitive photodiode array detector during HPLC and a concentrated extract of the intestine of a -A rat at 1 h, these products were characterized by their spectra, by their retention time on HPLC, and by the formation and spectral analysis of two different chemical derivatives. The total amount of the ß-apocarotenals present at 1 h was ~0.30 nmol/g, or <5% of the total retinoids present at the same time. Furthermore, no ß-apocarotenoic acids or ß-apocarotenyl esters, which are major metabolites of the ß-apocarotenals (Zeng et al. 1992Citation ), were detected. In this regard, ß-apo-8'-carotenal is converted very slowly, if at all, to retinal in intestinal homogenates in vitro (Nagao et al. 1996Citation ).

In addition to the more common ß-apocarotenals (8', 10', 12', 14'), we identified a HPLC peak (~0.05 nmol/g) with a spectrum, chromatographic behavior and derivatives similar to those of carotenoids containing a 6' carbonyl group, e.g., ß-apo-6'-carotenal (Isler et al. 1959Citation ), citranaxanthin (Yokoyama and White 1965Citation ) and semi-ß-carotenone (Yokoyama and White 1968Citation ). We favor semi-ß-carotenone as the primary product because its formation by a dioxygenase is analogous to that of all other carotenoid cleavage products. Semi-ß-carotenone, although formed biologically in citrus (Yokayama and White 1968Citation ), has not been suggested previously as a possible product of ß-carotene metabolism in mammals in vivo. Further study is clearly necessary, however, to elucidate the structure of this compound.

The extent to which these ß-apocarotenals arise by chemical oxidation in the lumen of the intestine or by enzymatic cleavage in the mucosa is unclear. Because the ß-apo-carotenals were not identified in +A rats nor in tissues of -A rats other than the intestine, ß-apo-carotenals clearly were not formed as artifacts of the isolation and extraction procedures.

The serum of -A rats expectedly showed an increase in all retinoids and ß-carotene 3 h after dosing, whereas that of +A rats showed lesser effects. Of particular note is that serum retinol in -A rats peaked at 3 h at a concentration almost twice that in +A rats. Furthermore, the serum RA concentration at 3 h was much higher in -A than in +A rats, in keeping with our observation that retinoyl ß-glucuronide is also converted more rapidly to RA in -A than in +A rats (Barua et al. 1998Citation , Kaul and Olson 1998Citation ).

All retinoids in the livers of -A rats increased markedly at 3 h after dosing with ß-carotene. Although the liver concentrations of retinoids were much higher initially in +A rats, the total mean increment of stored retinoids at 3 h in the livers of +A rats (35.5 nmol/g) was higher than that of -A rats (28.6 nmol/g). Thus, the rate of conversion of ß-carotene to vitamin A in vivo may be less affected by vitamin A status than previously assumed on the basis of studies with intestinal preparations alone (van Vliet et al. 1996Citation ).

The retinal formed from ß-carotene in the intestine is oxidized to RA to a greater extent in -A than in +A rats (Table 2)Citation . Probably as a result, serum RA is also significantly greater in -A rats (Table 1)Citation . The lower concentrations of ß-carotene, RA and retinal in the liver of -A rats, therefore, may reflect a more rapid conversion of ß-carotene to retinal, a more rapid oxidation of retinal to RA and a more rapid release of RA from the liver into the plasma.

In essence, we have confirmed that ß-apocarotenals are formed as products of ß-carotene oxidation in vivo (Ganguly and Sastry 1985Citation , Glover 1960Citation , Sharma et al. 1977Citation , Wang et al. 1991Citation ). The ß-apocarotenoids were detected only in intestinal preparations of vitamin A–deficient rats, however, and were present in that tissue in amounts <5% of the amounts of retinoids formed there during the same period. These findings, which agree with those of in vitro studies, support the view that the central cleavage of ß-carotene is the predominant pathway for vitamin A formation in healthy mammals.


    FOOTNOTES
 
1 Presented in part at the 12th International Carotenoid Symposium, 18–23 July 1999, Cairns, Australia [Barua, A. B. & Olson, J. A. (1999) Conversion of all-trans ß-carotene into vitamin A and other products by the rat in vivo, p. 62 (abs.)]. Back

2 Supported in part by National Institutes of Health-DK39733, U.S. Department of Agriculture-NRICGP 97–37200-4290 and U.S. Department of Agriculture/CDFIN 96–34115-2835. Journal Paper No. J-18838;8> of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station, Ames, IA, Project No. 3335, and supported by Hatch Act and State of Iowa Funds. Back

4 Abbreviations used: +A, vitamin A-sufficient; -A, vitamin A-deficient; RA, retinoic acid. Back

Manuscript received December 13, 1999. Initial review completed January 19, 2000. Revision accepted April 6, 2000.


    REFERENCES
 TOP
 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
 RESULTS
 DISCUSSION
 REFERENCES
 

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3. Barua A. B., Ghosh M. C. Preparation and properties of 4-oxo-retinoic acid and its methyl ester. Tetrahedron Lett 1972;18:1823-1825

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