Introduction and guidelines on the use of the Handbook

Abstract

From time to time, lists of known naturally occurring carotenoids have been compiled and published. In their monograph Carotenoids,published in 1948 and in English translation in 1950, Paul Karrer and Ernst Jucker described structures of some 30 or so carotenoids that had been isolated from well-known natural sources, and for which structures had been assigned, together with another 30–40 which, at that time, were not fully characterized. By the time of the Carotenoids book edited by Otto Isler and published in 1971, the number of natural carotenoids for which structures had been assigned had risen to 273. A list of these was published as the Key to Carotenoids, edited by Otto Straub, and this list was also included as a chapter in the Isler volume. In the Key, the common and IUPAC names were given for each compound, together with its molecular formula and structure, and references to occurrence, isolation, spectroscopic and other properties, synthesis and biosynthesis. The same format was used in the Key to Carotenoids, Second Edition, edited by Hanspeter Pfander and published in 1987. In the 1970s and early 1980s, research on the isolation and characterization of natural carotenoids was at its most active, and this Second Edition of the Key listed 563 compounds. A further 54 newly described carotenoids were added as an Appendix to Carotenoids, Vol. 1A,in 1995.