Tocopherols and Carotenoids are two major lipophilic antioxidants in chloroplasts.
I am wondering why they are exclusively synthesized in photosynthetic tissues (in chloroplasts) and cannot be found elsewhere ?
You can see in the following:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16669779/
Hi, Mohammad,
Tocopherols are organics that manifest Vitamin E activity. On the other hand, carotenoids are accessory pigments that are made up of isoprenoid units and are photo-degradative. To answer your question, these organics are confined in the chloroplast as they work as photo-oxidizable agents; they capture light wavelengths that chlorophylls do not.
I argue that the function of these organics made them confined in the chloroplast.
Hope this helps.
Best,
Arizaldo
Dear Arizaldo,
do you mean that tocopherols and carotenoids exerting their fuction as ROS scavenger (mainly singlet oxygen) and quencher of chlorophyll triplet state (carotenoid) is the reason that they can't be found outside chloroplasts?
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