The distribution of carotenoids in hens fed on biofortified maize is influenced by feed composition, absorption, resource allocation and storage

Carotenoids are important dietary nutrients with health-promoting effects. The biofortification of staple foods with carotenoids provides an efficient delivery strategy but little is known about the fate and distribution of carotenoids supplied in this manner. The chicken provides a good model of human carotenoid metabolism so we supplemented the diets of laying hens using two biofortified maize varieties with distinct carotenoid profiles and compared the fate of the different carotenoids in terms of distribution in the feed, the hen’s livers and the eggs. We found that after a period of depletion, pro-vitamin A (PVA) carotenoids were preferentially diverted to the liver and relatively depleted in the eggs, whereas other carotenoids were transported to the eggs even when the liver remained depleted. When retinol was included in the diet, it accumulated more in the eggs than the livers, whereas PVA carotenoids showed the opposite profile. Our data suggest that a transport nexus from the intestinal lumen to the eggs introduces bottlenecks that cause chemically-distinct classes of carotenoids to be partitioned in different ways. This nexus model will allow us to optimize animal feed and human diets to ensure that the health benefits of carotenoids are delivered in the most effective manner.