Fotofísica de carotenóides e o papel antioxidante de b-caroteno Photophysics of carotenoids and the antioxidant role of b-carotene

Abstract

Carotenoid polyenes play a wide role in nature and their photophysical properties make of these pigments a focus of research in photochemistry, photobiology and photomedicine. Some aspects of the singlet and triplet states and, their interaction with molecular and singlet oxygen and free radicals are briefly reviewed in this article.

Keywords

• carotenoids
• b-carotene
• singlet oxygen