Lycopenewas extracted following the method developed by Fish,
Perkins-Veazie, and Collins (2002). A 0.50 0.01 g of tomato was
ground in a mortar together with 1 mL of distilled water. Tomato
pastes were transferred to light-protected glass tubes with the
addition of 5 mL of a 0.5 g L1 butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)
solution in acetone; subsequently, 5mLof 95% (v/v) aqueous ethanol
and 10 mL of hexane were added. For lycopene extraction, the tubes
were vortexed for 10 min. A supernatant aliquot (3.5 mL) was
pipetted out and transferred to a quartz spectrophotometric cell.
Absorbance was measured at 503 nm in a PerkineElmer Lamba 35
UV/Vis spectrophotometer. The following equation was used to
determine the amount of lycopene in tomato samples (Fish et al.,
2002):