Carotenoids in plant photoprotection

One of the roles of carotenoids in plants which are proposed is to serve as protecting agents against deleterious effects of light. The major mechanisms whereby carotenoids prevent harmful photooxidations in vitro and their suggested protective function in photosynthetic tissue, i.e. chioroplasts, will be summarized briefly. Fungi are non—photosynthetic plants, therefore lack the antenna function of carotenoids but some of them do contain carotenoids located in membranes as well. Thus, fungi can serve as a useful model system to study the potential function of carotenoids in protecting against photosensitized oxidations. Results obtained using the fungus Fusarium aQuaeductuum are presented which support the assumption that carotenoids indeed have the capacity to protect in vivo from the deleterious effects of light.