Portuguese team reveals biochemical mechanism of red coloration in vertebrates
Ketocarotenoids are the pigments that "cause" the red colour we see in many vertebrate animals.
English version: Diana Taborda
An international team led by researchers from CIBIO-InBIO/BIOPOLIS (University of Porto), the University of Tulsa, and the University of Washington School of Medicine (USA) has published a study that identifies for the first time an enzyme process that produces red coloration in vertebrates.
The team includes two researchers from the University of Coimbra: Pedro Miguel Araújo (MARE) and Ivan Viegas (CFE and CNC).
Red coloration is a remarkable and common biological feature in nature. Many vertebrates produce red colour by converting dietary yellow carotenoids into red ketocarotenoids through unknown mechanisms that have puzzled scientists for decades.
In this study, now published in the prestigious journal “Current Biology”, and according to the abstract, researchers “show that two enzymes, cytochrome P450 (CYP2J19) and deshydrogenase (BDH1L), are sufficient to catalyze the conversion of yellow carotenoids into red ketocarotenoids. In birds, both enzymes are expressed at the sites of ketocarotenoid biosynthesis (feather follicles and red cone photoreceptors), and genetic evidence implicates these enzymes in yellow/red color variation in feathers. In fish, the homologs of CYP2J19 and BDH1L are required for ketocarotenoid production. These enzymes are sufficient to produce ketocarotenoids in cell culture and when ectopically expressed in fish skin. The discovery of this mechanism of ketocarotenoid biosynthesis has major implications for understanding the evolution of colour diversity in vertebrates.”
The article is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.08.013