Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment

Isolation of cDNA encoding phytoene synthase (crtB) in carrot (Daucus carota L. ssp. sativus)

Author(s):

Iman Abdul Halim ¹, Abdulkarim Sabo Mohammed ^{1 *}, Son Radu ¹, Tan Wen Siang ²

Recieved Date: 2014-01-06, Accepted Date: 2014-03-22

Abstract:

Daucus carota is one of the most renowned, widely available and a cheap source for carotenoid. Carotenoids have interesting pigment properties and more importantly, are the beneficial effects it has on human health. Carotenoid gene isolated from natural sources has been used to produce carotenoid via microbial fermentation because of the dramatic increase in demand. Furthermore, there are advances in the metabolic engineering of insertion of these genes in food-grade non-producer microbes thus producing high quality and cheap natural dietary carotenoid compared to synthetic carotenoid. In order to catalyze the dimerization of two molecules of geranyl-geranyl pyrophosphate (GGPP) to phytoene, phytoene synthase (CrtB) plays an important rate limiting function for the synthesis of β-carotene. It catalyzes the first step of the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway. cDNA of crtB gene was synthesized from 18S (750 - 1000 bp) and 28S (1000 - 1500 bp) total RNA extracted from the fleshy tuber of D. carota. Amount of total RNA extracted ranged from 3.45 to 4.20 µg/ml. A total of high quality cDNA of crtB ranged from 1.90 to 2.90 µg/ml was successfully isolated at the length of 930 bp, which showed very low contamination of protein and polysaccharide. A high quality cDNA encoding phytoene synthase crtB isolated from cheap source such as D. carota may fulfill the high demand of natural carotenoid and can be a huge contributor for higher profit for the industry, safer and more importantly, therapeutically more effective source for health benefit than synthetic carotenoids, which are more difficult to be absorbed by the body.

Keywords:

Phytoene synthase, crtB, carotenoid, metabolic engineering, Daucus carota

---

Journal: Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment
Year: 2014
Volume: 12
Issue: 2
Category: Food and Health
Pages: 89-92

---

Full text for Subscribers

---

Information:

Note to users

The requested document is freely available only to subscribers/registered users with an online subscription to the Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment. If you have set up a personal subscription to this title please enter your user name and password. All abstracts are available for free.

Article purchasing

If you like to purchase this specific document such as article, review or this journal issue, contact us. Specify the title of the article or review, issue, number, volume and date of the publication. Software and compilation, Science & Technology, all rights reserved. Your use of this website details or service is governed by terms of use. Authors are invited to check from time to time news or information.

---

Purchase this Article:   20 Purchase PDF Order Reprints for 15

---

Share this article :