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Research Highlights
Nature Chemistry (24 October 2008) | doi:10.1038/nchem.81
Chlorophyll breakdown: Blue bananas
Abstract
Leaves and fruits such as bananas, apples or pears lose their green colour during the natural ageing process when chlorophyll is broken down into non-fluorescent products (known as non-fluorescent chlorophyll catabolites or NCCs). Fluorescent ones (FCCs) are also very briefly formed during the degradation, but only as intermediates — they undergo rapid isomerization to form non-fluorescent ones, and are hardly detectable.
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