Patent ID: 7671242

Claim:
A process for isolating aflatoxin-free lutein from an aflatoxin-contaminated plant source containing lutein and lipids, said method comprising the steps of: (a) Grinding the plant source; (b) Treating the ground plant source with acetone, in a concentration and for a time sufficient to extract at least some of the aflatoxin-contaminated lutein from the plant source, and then filtering the resulting mixture to separate the acetone solution with dissolved aflatoxin-contaminated lutein and lipids from undissolved plant materials; (c) Evaporating the filtered acetone solution for a time sufficient to concentrate the aflatoxin-contaminated lutein and lipids; (d) Maintaining the concentrated acetone-solution at a sufficiently low temperature and a sufficiently long time to precipitate most of the lipids from the dissolved aflatoxin-contaminated lutein; (e) Collecting the solution with dissolved aflatoxin-contaminated lutein; (f) Incubating the dissolved aflatoxin-contaminated lutein with a lipoxygenase, in a concentration and under conditions sufficient to oxidize the aflatoxin; (g) Saponifying the lutein with alkali; (h) Separating the lutein into a polar phase solvent; and (i) Evaporating the polar phase solvent to concentrate the lutein; Wherein steps (a) through (i) occur consecutively in the order listed above.