Method for producing carotenoid composition
AssigneeKaneka Corporation
InventorsKento Kanaya, Koichi Kinoshita, Masaru Hirano
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Abstract
The present invention provides an efficient method for industrially producing a naturally-derived carotenoid composition with a large amount of a carotenoid such as astaxanthin from a culture of a yeast of the genus Xanthophyllomyces without requiring any special extraction equipment and any complicated refinement process and without any need for organic solvents harmful to humans. Provided is a method for producing a carotenoid composition, including the steps of washing a carotenoid-containing yeast of the genus Xanthophyllomyces with an organic solvent (A) at 30° C. or lower, and extracting a carotenoid from the washed yeast with an organic solvent (B) at 10° C. to 70° C.
Claims20
A method for producing a carotenoid composition, comprising:
- washing a carotenoid-containing yeast of the genus Xanthophyllomyces with a first organic solvent at 30° C. or lower to obtain a washed yeast;
- and
- extracting a carotenoid from the washed yeast with a second organic solvent at 10° C. to 70° C. to obtain a carotenoid extract.
A carotenoid composition, comprising:
- astaxanthin which has a powder X-ray diffraction pattern comprising peaks at diffraction angles of 13.3° (2θ±0.2°), 13.8° (2θ±0.2°), 14.3° (2θ±0.2°), 15.8° (2θ±0.2°), 16.3° (2θ±0.2°), 18.2° (2θ±0.2°), 20.5° (2θ±0.2°), 24.8° (2θ±0.2°), and 25.3° (2θ±0.2°), and has a chemical structure of (3R, 3′R).
A carotenoid composition, which is an oily composition comprising astaxanthin derived from a yeast of the genus Xanthophyllomyces,
- wherein the carotenoid composition has a ratio of an ergosterol content to an astaxanthin content of 40% by weight or lower.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.