Analysis of nicotine-induced metabolic changes in Blakeslea trispora by GC-MS / 浙江大学学报（英文版）（B辑：生物医学和生物技术）

Blakeslea trispora is a natural source of carotenoids, including β-carotene and lycopene, which have industrial applications. Therefore, classical selective breeding techniques have been applied to generate strains with increased productivity, and microencapsulated β-carotene preparation has been used in food industry (Li et al., 2019). In B. trispora, lycopene is synthesized via the mevalonate pathway (Venkateshwaran et al., 2015). Lycopene cyclase, which is one of the key enzymes in this pathway, is a bifunctional enzyme that can catalyze the cyclization of lycopene to produce β-carotene and exhibit phytoene synthase activity (He et al., 2017).

Microencapsulated β-carotene preparation using different drying treatments / 浙江大学学报（英文版）（B辑：生物医学和生物技术）

β-Carotene is one of the most abundant natural pigments in foods; however, usage of β-carotene is limited because of its instability. Microencapsulation techniques are usually applied to protect microencapsulated β-carotene from oxidization. In this study, β-carotene was microencapsulated using different drying processes: spray-drying, spray freeze-drying, coating, and spray granulation. The properties of morphology, particle size, water content, thermal characteristic, and chemical stability have been explored and compared. Scanning electron microscopy measurements showed that the coated powder had a dense surface surrounded by starch and suggested that the coating process gave a microencapsulated powder with the smallest bulk density and the best compressibility among the prepared powders. The chemical stabilities of microcapsules were evaluated during six months of storage at different temperatures. The coated powder had the highest mass fraction of β-carotene, which indicated that the coating process was superior to the three other drying processes.