astaxanthin

CHEBI:40968 EXACT SEEDED

A carotenone that consists of β,β-carotene-4,4'-dione bearing two hydroxy substituents at positions 3 and 3' (the 3S,3'S diastereomer). A carotenoid pigment found mainly in animals (crustaceans, echinoderms) but also occurring in plants. It can occur free (as a red pigment), as an ester, or as a blue, brown or green chromoprotein.

Structure

Standard InChIKey	MQZIGYBFDRPAKN-UWFIBFSHSA-N
SMILES	C\C(\C=C\C=C(/C)\C=C\C1=C(C)C(=O)[C@@H](O)CC1(C)C)=C/C=C/C=C(\C)/C=C/C=C(\C)/C=C/C1=C(C)C(=O)[C@@H](O)CC1(C)C
Stereochemistry	fully defined
Cross-references	npatlas:NPA05089

Filing pathway

Terpenoids — computed by NPClassifier npclassifier.gnps2.org@2026-09-07, which is why it is pinned rather than recomputed. The gene cluster's asserted class is terpene, from MIBiG.

Producer organisms 1

A claim that this taxon makes the compound. The basis says what the evidence addressed — a knockout and a database assertion are not the same claim.

Taxon	Basis	Cluster	Evidence
Paracoccus haeundaensis NCBITaxon:225362	SOURCE_ASSERTION	mibig:BGC0000630	PMID:16434154

Occurrences 25

Somebody found the compound in this organism and cited it. That is not a claim that the organism makes it, and nothing here promotes one to the other.

Taxon	Source	Reference
Ascidia zara NCBITaxon:107392	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-0491(85)90174-9
Linckia laevigata NCBITaxon:109185	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-0491(89)90090-4
Cladonia gracilis NCBITaxon:111668	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia rangiferina NCBITaxon:111670	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia rangiferina NCBITaxon:111670	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(87)90002-0
Cladonia ciliata var. tenuis NCBITaxon:1156959	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Gelliodes callista NCBITaxon:1336858	LOTUS	DOI:10.2331/SUISAN.53.1271
Cladonia stellaris NCBITaxon:174045	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia cenotea NCBITaxon:174050	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia coccifera NCBITaxon:174053	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia fimbriata NCBITaxon:174058	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia glauca NCBITaxon:174061	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia ochrochlora NCBITaxon:174062	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia scabriuscula NCBITaxon:174071	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Paralithodes brevipes NCBITaxon:174403	LOTUS	DOI:10.2331/SUISAN.54.1437
Cladonia deformis NCBITaxon:184097	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia ecmocyna NCBITaxon:184098	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(87)90002-0
Cladonia phyllophora NCBITaxon:184109	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Hexabranchus NCBITaxon:190923	LOTUS	DOI:10.2331/SUISAN.58.1549
Cladonia mitis NCBITaxon:195774	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia macilenta NCBITaxon:196765	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Cladonia macrophylla NCBITaxon:197105	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(87)90002-0
Cladonia ramulosa NCBITaxon:2031061	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(85)90064-X
Nephroma laevigatum NCBITaxon:203386	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-1978(88)90082-8
Thysanoessa inermis NCBITaxon:210626	LOTUS	DOI:10.1016/0305-0491(87)90298-7

Biosynthetic gene clusters 1

Accession	Host	Locus evidence	Genome
mibig:BGC0000630	Paracoccus haeundaensis NCBITaxon:225362	CLUSTER_UNSTATED	genbank:AY957386.1

A locus claim and a taxon claim are different questions. Heterologous expression settles the first and leaves the second where the isolation report left it.

Open questions 1

name-disagreement — ChEBI calls this structure 'astaxanthin' and MIBiG calls it "(2R,3S,3'S)-2-hydroxyastaxanthin". They share a Standard InChIKey, so if the names denote different compounds then one upstream record has the wrong structure. Check which.

Provenance

Source concept	Source	Version
BGC0000630	MIBIG	3
CHEBI:40968	CHEBI	3-star

This page is generated from data/natural_products/terpenoids/astaxanthin.yaml, which is generated from the committed inventories. Neither is edited by hand.