Paul D. Fraser

TL;DR: The aim of this article is to review the current understanding of carotenoid formation, to explain the perceived benefits ofcarotenoids in the diet and review the efforts that have been made to increase carotanoids in certain crop plants.

TL;DR: The potential of derivatization for metabolic profiling in LC/MS is demonstrated by the enhanced analysis of plant extracts, including the potential to measure volatile acids such as formic acid, difficult to achieve by GC/MS.

TL;DR: The results suggest that transcription of Psy and Pds is regulated developmentally, with expression being considerably elevated in chromoplast-containing tissues, and lends support to the hypothesis of divergent genes encoding these enzymes.

TL;DR: Metabolic control analysis suggests that the presence of an additional phytoene synthase reduces the regulatory effect of this step over the carotenoid pathway, and the activities of other enzymes in the pathway (isopentenyl diphosphate isomerase, geranylgeranyl diph phosphate synthase, and incorporation of isopentanyl dphosphate into phy toene) were not significantly altered.

TL;DR: Results demonstrate that manipulation of a plant regulatory gene can simultaneously influence the production of several phytonutrients generated from independent biosynthetic pathways, and provide a novel example of the use of organ-specific gene silencing to improve the nutritional value of plant-derived products.