About the Authors

Rossella E. Simone

Affiliation Institute of General Pathology, Catholic University, Rome, Italy

Marco Russo

Affiliation Institute of Nutrition, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany

Assunta Catalano

Affiliation Institute of General Pathology, Catholic University, Rome, Italy

Giovanni Monego

Affiliation Institute of Anatomy, Catholic University School of Medicine, Rome, Italy

Kati Froehlich

Affiliation Institute of Nutrition, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany

Volker Boehm

Affiliation Institute of Nutrition, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany

Paola Palozza

p.palozza@rm.unicatt.it

Affiliation Institute of General Pathology, Catholic University, Rome, Italy

Competing Interests

We received lycopene from Dr. Yoav Sharoni and LycoRed Natural Products Industries Ltd. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies and no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PP. Performed the experiments: RES MR AC KF GM. Analyzed the data: PP VB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PP VB. Wrote the paper: PP.