10/06/2005 Entry: "I was smart once"

I was smart once... even if I didn't take my lab reports seriously...

I came across this last night and it made me chuckle so I figured I'd post it:

(bbmb is biochemistry)

Mike Seager
November 4, 2003
bbmb 311
Carotenoids

Plants are colorful. This is because they are chock full of pigments. Most plants are green because they have an abundance of chlorophyll, the giver of life. It should be noted that the color absorption and thus pure color of chlorophyll is different than when it is expressed in plant cells. In cells there are many factors acting on chlorophyll modifying its absorption pattern.

There are many other pigments in plants besides chlorophyll. You often see these pigments in the fall when chlorophyll wusses out and runs away from the cold and the leaves on the trees turn red and yellow. The yellow pigments are generally from the presence of carotenoids. If chlorophyll were the star actor in a play, carotenoids would be the under appreciated understudy. Carotenoids are accessory pigments that transfer light energy to the chlorophyll in plant cells. In this experiment we isolated the different pigments in kale and red pepper to determine what pigments were present. We were especially looking for the carotenoids B-carotene, Lycopene, and Lutein. We first extracted the pigments using organic solvents and then separated them using thin layer chromatography. A saponification process was used to degrade the chlorophyll in duplicated samples in order to allow us to directly isolate the carotenoids. We then ran the saponificated red pepper using a large streak with TLC and harvested the band. The bands were separated from the plate and an absorbtion spectrum was run on them to determine what pigment they were.