The effect of lycopene on macrophage foam cell formation induced by modified low-density lipoprotein (LDL) was studied. Human monocyte-derived macrophages (HMDM) were incubated with lycopene in the presence or absence of native LDL (nLDL) or LDL modified by oxidation (oxLDL), aggregation (aggLDL), or acetylation (acLDL). The cholesterol content, lipid synthesis, scavenger receptor activity, and...

The recent search for new anti-cancer drugs focuses more on natural compounds from the regular human diet because these compounds rarely exhibit severe side-effects yet efficiently act on a wide range of molecular targets involved in carcinogenesis. One promising compound, which is now being tested in clinical studies, is the tomato-derived carotenoid lycopene. This review summarizes the curren...

BACKGROUND Oral uptake of lycopene has been shown to be beneficial for preventing myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. However, the strong first-pass metabolism of lycopene influences its bioavailability and impedes its clinic application. In this study, we determined an intravenous (IV) administration dose of lycopene protects against myocardial infarction (MI) in a mouse model, and i...

The aim of the study was to estimate dietary intake of lycopene by the group of 100 women, from Central Poland, in different age <30 years, 30-50 years, >50 years (mean age 49 +/- 16 years) and main sources of lycopene. The study was carried out in the year 2006 (June-July) with the use of 4-day dietary food records. The lowest intake of lycopene was noted in the youngest group--4.17 mg/person/...

A fourth and large family of lycopene cyclases was identified in photosynthetic prokaryotes. The first member of this family, encoded by the cruA gene of the green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum, was identified in a complementation assay with a lycopene-producing strain of Escherichia coli. Orthologs of cruA are found in all available green sulfur bacterial genomes and in all cyanobacteria...

Lycopene is a phytochemical that belongs to a group of pigments known as carotenoids. It is red, lipophilic and naturally occurring in many fruits and vegetables, with tomatoes and tomato-based products containing the highest concentrations of bioavailable lycopene. Several epidemiological studies have linked increased lycopene consumption with decreased prostate cancer risk. These findings are...

lycopene is a natural and dominant pigment in tomato which today itsextraction enhancement from tomato and tomato products is trying. in this study atfirst wed use pectinase at 25, 30, 35 and 40 ml/kg concentration at 0, 30, 60, 90,120 and 180 effecting time in 55 0c constant temperature incubation. then beforeextraction half of samples were washed with 94% ethanol at 60 0c for 5 second. ithas ...

BACKGROUND Lycopene has been promoted for prostate cancer prevention, despite the inconsistency of scientific evidence. METHODS This nested case-control study examined whether serum lycopene was associated with prostate cancer risk among participants in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial, a placebo-controlled trial of finasteride for prostate cancer prevention. Presence or absence of cancer...

Myocardial Ischemia/Reperfusion (MI/R) injury is a clinical phenomenon including myocardial structural damage, dysfunction and disorders of metabolism and electrophysiology after re-perfusion of ischemic heart tissues. It mainly occurs after myocardial infarction and by-pass surgery, and is one major issue in clinic. Lycopene has been known to exert anti-oxidation effects. This study thus inves...

By-products derived from food processing are attractive source for their valuable bioactive components and color pigments. These by-products are useful for development as functional foods, nutraceuticals, food ingredients, additives, and also as cosmetic products. Lycopene is a bioactive red colored pigment naturally occurring in plants. Industrial by-products obtained from the plants are the g...