WITHDRAWN: Enhancement of carotenoids in Dunaliella salina for use as dietary supplements and in the preservation foods

Abstract

In the present work, compared with optimal conditions, the green marine microalgae, Dunaliella salina contained high amounts of total carotenoids (TCAR, 12.6%, dw), including beta-carotene (60.4%, of total carotenoids), astaxanthin (17.7%), zeaxanthin (13.4%), lutein (4.6%) and cryptoxanthin (3.9%) when grown under stress condition. These TCAR showed greater antioxidant potential by inhibition of lipid peroxidation of rat liver microsomes induced by Fe(++)/ascorbate and Fe(++)/H(2)O(2) model systems compared with the synthetic antioxidant BHT. The safety evaluation of D. salina functional ingredients as antioxidant and natural food colorant was conducted, in which male albino rats fed ad libitum for 6weeks with one of the following diets: standard diet (S) and S diets containing 0.5g trans beta-carotene/kg diets (S+0.5g betaC), S+0.5g D. salina carotenoids/kg diets (S+0.5 DC) and S+1.0g D. salina carotenoids/kg diets (S+1.0 DC). Generally, all diets did not induce any obvious injurious and abnormality behavior as well as growth performance. The concentrations of glucose and glycogen in liver and glucose, total proteins, urea and creatinine as well as enzymes activities of aspartate (AST) and alanine aminotransferases (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) in either plasma or liver were not significantly different from each other in all four diet. In contrast, the levels of total lipids and lipids components showed significant differences in all groups. Groups S+0.5 betaC, S+0.5 DC and S+1.0 DC showed a significant decrease in concentrations of total lipids, triglycerides, total cholesterol and phospholipids in either plasma or hepatic tissues compared with S group. The results showed that D. salina carotenoids could be potential rich sources of natural antioxidant and food colorant and have a hypolipidemic and hypocholesterolemic properties.