Plant Pigments and Their Manipulation

Plant pigments represent a large and active field of research that impacts fundamental studies of plant function and gene expression, agriculture, the processing of foods and human health. The text Plant Pigments and their Manipulation provides a broad review of all the major plant pigment groups, considering the underlying biology, genetic manipulation, and applications of plant pigments within agriculture, food technology and human health. The aim of first chapter is to evaluate the effect of irradiance spectrum in gas exchange and production of photosynthetic pigments of Piper aduncum, considering their medicinal importance and lack of knowledge of the adaptive capacity in photosynthetic process at different ecoambientes. Second chapter undertakes a systematic meta-analysis to determine whether passive optical hyperspectral remote sensing techniques are sufficiently well developed to quantify individual plant pigments, which operational solutions are available for wider plant science and the areas which now require greater focus. The biological pigments in plants physiology have been discussed in third chapter. Fourth chapter gives an overview of the pigmented natural compounds isolated from bacteria of marine origin, based on accumulated data. Impacts of temperature on the stability of tropical plant pigments as sensitizers for dye sensitized solar cells have been investigated in fifth chapter. Sixth chapter describes ultrastructure and pigments of ivy (Hedera helix L.) varieties with green and variegated leaves. In seventh chapter, 16 cultigens of bunching onion (Allium fistulosum L.) are grown in a glasshouse under filtered UV radiation (control) or supplemental UV-B radiation to determine impacts on growth, physiological parameters, and nutritional quality. Eighth chapter reports the performance of four natural dyes extracted from the leaves of teak (Tectona grandis), tamarind (Tamarindus indica), eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus), and the flower of crimson bottle brush (Callistemon citrinus). The aim of ninth chapter is to investigate the influence of tyrosine on the in vitro growth and the production of the betacyanin pigment in Alternanthera philoxeroides and A. tenella. In tenth chapter, we show betalain production in species that normally produce anthocyanins, through a combination of genetic modification and substrate feeding. Eleventh chapter presents a general overview of plant pigmentation, together with some general functional and economic aspects. In twelfth chapter, we assess how much chlorophyllide is formed during pigment extraction compared to the amount that naturally occurs in leaves. A genomic approach to study anthocyanin synthesis and flower pigmentation in passionflowers has been proposed in last chapter.