EN
Carotenoids play an essential role especially in human nutrition. Single or a few carotenoid genes have been identified for different organisms including plants. There are some informations in the literature about regulation of carotenoid biosynthesis. While analyzing the complexity of carotenoid metabolic pathway, it is clearly visible that our know ledge about genetic background of carotenoid changes is still fragmentary. This publication presents the review of techniques used for identification of carotenoid biosynthesis genes and examples of genes identified by those techniques. We also described the regulation mechanisms of carotenoid biosynthesis in plants and the practical use of carotenoid genes in genetic engineering.