Determination and Comparison of α-Carotene and β-Carotene of Plant-Derived Foods

The study was conducted to develop an analytical method for simultaneous online determination of α-carotene and β-carotene in plant-derived foods by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Furthermore, the method was validated with freeze-dried carrot powder. The results showed that the calibration curves for α-carotene and β-carotene were linear in the ranges of 0.8-20 and 0.4-8.2 μg/mL, respectively. The precision expressed as relative standard deviation (RSD) were 4.45% and 4.71%, respectively. The recoveries at three spiked levels were 96%-112% and 83.5%-103% with RSD values of 2.67%-5.83% and 4.90%-7.42%, respectively. These data indicated good repeatability and accuracy. Comparative analysis of various plant-derived foods by this method showed that β-carotene was more abundant than α-carotene in all samples except for pumpkin, which gave the opposite result. © 2018, China Food Publishing Company. All right reserved.