Isolation of chromoplastid carotenoids from fruits

A process for obtaining a chromoplastid carotenoid from a plant fruit comprising the following steps:

• i) preventive washing and crushing of the plant fruit;
• (iii) fragmenting mechanically the washed and crushed fruit in a first buffered solution;
• (iii) centrifuging to generate a water-soluble cytosolic fraction and a solid fraction to separate out the water-soluble cytosolic fraction;
• (iv) recovering the separated solid fraction comprising a chromoplastidial membrane after the centrifugation, and dispersion of the separated solid fraction in a second buffered solution,
• (v) adding to the second buffered solution having dispersed therein the separate solid fraction an alkylsaccharide detergent, thereby solubilizing the chromoplastid carotenoid, and mixing and subsequent centrifuging to generate a supernatant solution;
• and
• (vi) removing the supernatant solution after the centrifugation of step (v), and
• (vii) isolating of the chromoplastid carotenoid from the removed supernatant solution by a process selected from the group consisting of:
• Size Exclusion Chromatography, Fast Protein Liquid Chromatography, ultracentrifugation, nano- and ultrafiltration.