Use of Spectroscopy to Identify Carotenoids In Maize.

Vitamin A deficiency is a common problem in the developing world where severe deficiency can lead to blindness and even death.  Many people exist chiefly on the consumption of staple crops such as maize much of the year.  Although, maize contains natural variability for carotenoid content, most maize consumed by humans is white and contains no carotenoids.   Higher carotenoid content in maize is associated with darker orange color and carotenoid content can be improved by selecting for orange color.  Color scores in a mapping population of maize have been used to detect QTL for color variation in maize that are associated with known carotenoid genes (Chandler, 2011).  This method is subjective, but could be more easily transferred to developing countries than HPLC, which is expensive and requires specific technical skills.  Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a more quantitative method and the use of NIRS to detect carotenoids in ground maize samples has been described (Brenna, 2004).  In this work, we relate spectroscopy to color scores and carotenoid profiles in two populations of maize.