Carotene

Question: What are the characteristics and functions of Melanin, Carotene, and Hemoglobin? What are the characteristics and functions of the three skin pigmentation's of Melanin, Carotene, and Hemoglobin? This is for Anatomy I.

Answer: Melanin is a brown pigment found in skin. The amount and location of melanin determines a person's skin color. Hemoglobin is a red pigment that carries oxygen in red blood cells. Carotene is an orange pigment. It is converted to retinoic acid (vitamin A). Vitamin A has many functions.

Question: How do the functions of carotene and xanthophyll differ in photosynthesis? Am I correct in thinking that they both absorb blue-green light, and transfer that to chlorophyll? Are there any differences or other functions?

Answer: Xanothophyll and carotene absorb different wavelengths of light. You're right that these pigments transfer light energy to chlorophyll. Xanthophyll also contains oxygen, whereas carotene does not.

Question: is carotene in carrots a bacteria? im doing a project on bacteria and i was wondering is carotene a bacteria?

Answer: No, it's not. The term carotene is used for several related substances having the formula C40H56. Carotene is an orange photosynthetic pigment important for photosynthesis. It is responsible for the orange colour of the carrot and many other fruits and vegetables. It contributes to photosynthesis by transmitting the light energy it absorbs to chlorophyll. Chemically, carotene is a terpene, synthesized biochemically from eight isoprene units. It comes in two primary forms designated by characters from the Greek alphabet: alpha-carotene (α-carotene) and beta-carotene (β-carotene). Gamma, delta and epsilon (γ, δ and ε-carotene) also exist. Beta-carotene is composed of two retinyl groups, and is broken down in the mucosa of the small intestine by beta-carotene dioxygenase to retinol, a form of vitamin A. Carotene can be stored in the liver and converted to vitamin A as needed, thus making it a provitamin.

Question: What happens if I don't feed a red factor canary a mix of Canthaxanthin and Beta-Carotene? I know he would lose his red color. Would he turn white or yellow? Also, would it affect him health wise? I'm wondering if it would be "evil" on my part to change his diet once in a while just to see him change color. __________ Well... flamingos change color if they don't get a certain diet... so I thought the same happened w/ red canaries. Thanks in advance!

Answer: If a Red Factor Canary is not given red factor food before his first moult, then he will turn an orange or yellow colour. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Red Factors will not change colour after this. So if you stop feeding him red factor food now, and he turns yellow after his moult, you cannot feed him red factor food to turn him back to being red. Also, after a certain age, if the bird is not red, then it is unlikely you can change their colour. It can be very stressful for animals if you're changing their diet, especially if you only want to see if he changes colour. I'd leave him as he is, if that diet is suiting him.

Question: What percentage of the vitamin A in carrots, is beta carotene? Sub-Question: Could telling me to "check out Wikipedia", possibly be the worst answer ever given to a question? T

Answer: check out wikipedia, it has extensive info on this subject.

Question: can retinoblastoma be a defect from the the vitamin Beta Carotene? like for not taking that vitamin can it help cause that problem.

Answer: No it can't. Retinoblastome occurs when a single gene (the Rb gene) becomes defective. There are two types, familial and sporadic. In familial, the child is born with one defective gene. The risk of the other gene being mutated or knocked out is 1X10-6 (that's 1 in 1, 000, 000) There are several million retinal cells in the eye so its a high probability that the other gene will be lost in a few cells and the tumor grows. If you are worried, sporadic retinoblastoma is very rare simply because the risk is 1X10-6 times 1X 10-6. If both genes are normal at birth the risk to the eye is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000. very very small.

Question: How do you make beta carotene into a protein?

Answer: You can't. Beta carotene is a lipid and is a precursor of vitamin a. Proteins are assembled by joining numerous amino acids in a polymeric string using peptide bonding.

Question: Paper on Golden Rice, I need someone to explain what beta carotene is and differences b/w rice and golden rice? Ok, I am doing a biology paper on a transgenically modified crop, and I chose Golden Rice. Now, I keep finding many websites on it but I can't understand what they are saying-I'm not a genious. So if someone could dumb it down for me I would appreciate it.

Answer: Golden Rice is a variety of the common rice Oryza sativa. Golden Rice was produced through genetic engineering to biosynthesize beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is the precursor or the compound that used to produce Vitamin A. Golden Rice was developed as a fortified food to be used in areas where there is a shortage of dietary vitamin A. It has more beta-carotene than the regular rice. Here's a wiki link that has fairly simple terms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice

Question: What is the maximum absorbance of beta carotene?

Answer: almost certainly it would be in the visible region of the spectrum. after all it does have that pretty color! visible region is roughly between 400-700 nanometers wavelength.

Question: How does Beta Carotene work, and should I be afraid of it?

Answer: Beta carotene is a precursor to Vitamin A. Thus consuming beta carotene is equivalent to consuming Vitamin A. Lack of vit. A can lead to night-blindness and certain cancers, too much can cause anorexia/weight loss and neurological symptoms. Excessive levels of carotene can lead to a yellow-orange discoloration of the skin. You choose if you'd like to be afraid of it.

Question: A group of accessory pigments that include beta-carotene are called what? I'm doing a biology cross-word for school and all I can come up with is cartenoid but it's too short to fit into the space. Can anyone help me out? It was not carotenoids... it did not fit... so cartenoids or carotenoids fit.

Answer: Did you mean perhaps carotenoids?

Question: how much beta carotene is there in one carrot? for a biology projectttt!! or do u know how much carrots a person should eat a day ?

Answer: One carrot (7 1/2" long) has 2025 RE of vitamin A, which is 203% of your Daily Value. You don't need more than 1 carrot a day. (Beta carotene is a form of vitamin A)

Question: How would you seperate a mixture of lycopene, lutein, B-carotene and chlorophyll?

Answer: Usually the easiest way to seperate such a mixture would be to use some kind of chromatography system. The pigments of the plastids, as you have listed, can be studied by fractionation of the individual pigments by thin-layer chromatography. This can be done on silica gel (a polar mineral) using a solvent of hexane:acetone (70:30) - a system used often in teaching labs for the lesson on plant pigments.

Question: Is there such a thing as Alpha Carotene? If so, why doesn't our body use as much of it?

Answer: alfacintery ya but what ever the fuck that is don't know

Question: Which vegetable has 4 times more beta carotene than a carrot?

Answer: Dont know guess a swede,

Question: Can beta-carotene be dissolved in oil that you ate? Fat and fruits doesn't sound like such a good mix together.

Answer: Beta carotene is lipid soluble. Why not skip the fats?