Affiliations: Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Toxicology,
School of Pharmacy, Health Science Center, University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
Abstract: Water-dispersible beadlets of carotenoids were used as supplements
for human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), human peripheral blood
mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and human monocytes. Stability, cellular association
and cytotoxicity of the carotenoid beadlets were compared with carotenoids
delivered with tetrahydrofuran (THF). Incubations with lycopene,
β-carotene, lutein and astaxanthin dissolved in THF
resulted in a lower stability in the medium, lower cellular association, and a
higher standard deviation. Beadlets provided 60, 4, 6, and 2 times greater
accumulation of lycopene, β-carotene, lutein and
astaxanthin, respectively, by PBMCs than THF. The cellular association of
carotenoids delivered by THF seems to be more carotenoid-specific than when
carotenoids are delivered by beadlets. After 48~h of incubation under cell
culture conditions all of the four carotenoids (1 μM)
delivered by beadlets to the medium showed a reduction less than 30%. In
addition, no cytotoxic effect of the carotenoid beadlets or the vehicle alone
was detected in a concentration range of 0.5–5 μM. The
results show that beadlets are a non-toxic vehicle for supplementing and
stabilizing carotenoids in culture media offering a reasonable compromise in
term of cell accumulation efficiency.
