Characterization of fucoxanthin aggregates in mesopores of silica gel: Electronic absorption and circular dichroism spectroscopies

Fucoxanthin shows a large bathochromic shift of its absorption band when it is bound to photosynthetic antenna pigment–protein complexes derived in brown algae (fucoxanthin–chlorophyll a/c binding protein; FCP). In order to try to understand the intermolecular interactions of fucoxanthin responsible for this shift, we attempted to create a system that can control intermolecular interactions of carotenoids. In this study, we prepared the...