Carotenoid Analysis by Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography

Carotenoids extracted from mature fruit pericarps of the two AC08 accessions were analyzed using an Acquity UPLC-H-Class system (Waters, Milford, MA). Separation was performed using an Acquity UPLC HSS T3 column (2.1 × 100, 1.8 μm) at 35°C. The mobile phase was a binary solvent system consisting of phase A (acetonitrile/methanol/methylene chloride, 65/25/10, v/v/v) and phase B (distilled water). The gradients were programmed as previously described (Kim et al., 2016). The UV wavelength was set to 450 nm. For qualitative and quantitative analysis of carotenoids, 11 standards were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO): antheraxanthin, capsanthin, capsorubin, lutein, neoxanthin, violaxanthin, zeaxanthin, α-carotene, α-cryptoxanthin, β-carotene, and β-cryptoxanthin.