Ebook: Red Beet Biotechnology: Food and Pharmaceutical Applications

Biotechnology is a rapidly growing research area which is immediately translated into industrial applications. Although over 1000 research papers have emerged on various aspects of red beet and the chemistry of betalaines pigments, surprisingly no comprehensive book is available. The proposed Red Beet book encompasses a scholarly compilation of recent biotechnological research developments made in basic science, biochemistry of the chief components, technological developments in augmenting and recovery of such useful compounds and value-added products with discussions on future perspectives. The book will provide detailed information of the chemistry of the main components of normal and genetically engineered beetroot.

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With an overview about the red beet crop and its chemical composition, Chap. 1 is a compilation of both biotechnological and other complementing breakthroughs made in science using red beet as a model plant. The presence of large quantities of bright pigments in colored beets have attracted plant physiologists to unravel the pigment biosynthesis pathways, as discussed in Chap. 2, whereas, the stability of beet pigments during their extraction process as well as in food/pharmaceutical products are important for their sustained applications as nutraceuticals. Characterizations of the stability of betalains, from their biosynthesis all the way to products that receive them, make up the content of Chap. 3. Indeed, red beet has always been a material of choice for pigment research, owing to the large cellular pigment-laden vacuoles that can be isolated from beet tuber quite easily. Once separated from the cell, a large body of biochemical information is discernible from such vacuoles. Chapter 4 is a compilation of research developments made in unravelling physiologies governing the transport of nutrients and metabolites into and out of vacuoles and the enzymes/energetics involved in such transport mechanisms.