Tropical bat as mammalian model for skin carotenoid metabolism

Animals cannot synthesize carotenoid pigments de novo, and must consume them in their diet. Most mammals, including humans, are indiscriminate accumulators of carotenoids but inefficiently distribute them to some tissues and organs, such as skin. This limits the potential capacity of these organisms...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 113; no. 39; pp. 10932 - 10937
Main Authors Galván, Ismael, Garrido-Fernández, Juan, Ríos, José, Pérez-Gálvez, Antonio, Rodríguez-Herrera, Bernal, Negro, Juan José
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 27.09.2016
SeriesFrom the Cover
Subjects
Animals
Biological Sciences
Carotenoids - metabolism
Chiroptera - metabolism
Chromatography
Chromatography, Liquid
Male
Mammals
Mass Spectrometry
Metabolism
Models, Biological
Physiology
Pigments
Skin - metabolism
Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet
Tropical Climate
bats
carotenoids
skin coloration
macular degeneration
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Summary:Animals cannot synthesize carotenoid pigments de novo, and must consume them in their diet. Most mammals, including humans, are indiscriminate accumulators of carotenoids but inefficiently distribute them to some tissues and organs, such as skin. This limits the potential capacity of these organisms to benefit from the antioxidant and immunostimulatory functions that carotenoids fulfill. Indeed, to date, no mammal has been known to have evolved physiological mechanisms to incorporate and deposit carotenoids in the skin or hair, and mammals have therefore been assumed to rely entirely on other pigments such as melanins to color their integument. Here we use high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in combination with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HPLC-TOF/MS) to show that the frugivorous Honduran white bat Ectophylla alba colors its skin bright yellow with the deposition of the xanthophyll lutein. The Honduran white bat is thus a mammalian model that may help developing strategies to improve the assimilation of lutein in humans to avoid macular degeneration. This represents a change of paradigm in animal physiology showing that some mammals actually have the capacity to accumulate dietary carotenoids in the integument. In addition, we have also discovered that the majority of the lutein in the skin of Honduran white bats is present in esterified form with fatty acids, thereby permitting longer-lasting coloration and suggesting bright color traits may have an overlooked role in the visual communication of bats.
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Author contributions: I.G. and J.J.N. designed research; I.G., B.R.-H., and J.J.N. performed research; J.G.-F., J.R., and A.P.-G. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; I.G., J.G.-F., J.R., and A.P.-G. analyzed data; and I.G., A.P.-G., and J.J.N. wrote the paper.
Edited by David W. Russell, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, and approved July 26, 2016 (received for review June 17, 2016)
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1609724113