A rapid and sensitive method for determination of carotenoids in plant tissues by high performance liquid chromatography

BACKGROUND: The dietary carotenoids serve as precursor for vitamin A and prevent several chronic-degenerative diseases. The carotenoid profiling is necessary to understand their importance on human health. However, the available high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods to resolve the major carotenoids require longer analysis times and do not adequately resolve the violaxanthin and neoxanthin. RESULTS: A fast and sensitive HPLC method was developed using a C30 column at 20°C with a gradient consisting of methanol, methyl-tert-butyl ether and water. A total of 15 major carotenoids, including 14 all-trans forms and one cis form were resolved within 20 min. The method also distinctly resolved violaxanthin and neoxanthin present in green tissues. Additionally this method also resolved geometrical isomers of the carotenoids. CONCLUSION: The HPLC coupled with C30 column efficiently resolved fifteen carotenoids and their isomers in shorter runtime of 20 min. Application of this method to diverse matrices such as tomato fruits and leaves, Arabidopsis leaves and green pepper fruits showed the versatility and robustness of the method. The method would be useful for high throughput analysis of large number of samples. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13007-015-0051-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.