Cereal Chem 39:236 - 241.  |  VIEW ARTICLE

Carotenoids of Corn and Sorghum. I. Analytical Procedure.

C. W. Blessin. Copyright 1962 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

An improved procedure for determining total carotenes and total xanthophylls was developed to serve as a basis for studying the variation of carotenoid pigments in corn and sorghum. The method, based on chromatography and spectrophotometry, is also applicable to grain fractions from wet or dry milling. The effectiveness of alcohols as extracting solvents is attributed to their wetting action and to the breaking of carotenoid-protein complexes. The method produces a sharp separation of carotenes from free xanthophylls. The carotenes fraction includes cryptoxanthin esters, which comprise 13 to 33% of the carotenes and 1-5% of the total carotenoids in corn and sorghum. Saponification is unnecessary in studies on gross variation in xanthophyll level in cereal grains. Relative amounts of noncarotenoid pigments are also estimated by the improved procedure. Other factors influencing the determinations are discussed.