- Betalain is the pigment that gives beetroot its colour.
- The pigment is found in the vacuole of beetroot cells.
- The pigment has to pass through tonoplast and cell surface membrane to get out of the cell.
- Soaking beetroot in water of different temperature will give you different results (shades of colour)
Beetroot pigment is more likely to leak at higher tempeartures because ineasing remperatures:
- give molecules more kinetic energy
- phospholipids move more quickly at high temperatures, making membrane more fluid, leading to its breakdown and the leakage of the pigment
- proteins are denatured by the heat so no longer effectively control what enters leaves through the membrane
- Ethanol can dissolve phospholipids and so can act like a detergent
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