Phytochemicals and antioxidant activity of different fruit fractions (peel, pulp, aril and seed) of Thai gac (Momordica cochinchinensis Spreng)
Research highlights
► The highest content of lycopene and beta-carotene were found in ripe gac fruit. ► Major phenolic acids found in gac fruits were hydroxybenzoic acids and hydroxycinnamic acids. ► The highest content of rutin and luteolin were in aril. ► Pulp (red fruit) showed the highest apigenin content. ► The highest content of lutein was found in peel (yellow fruit).
Introduction
Momordica cochinchinensis Spreng is a tropical plant grown in many countries in tropical regions. It may be called by different name such as Gac (in Viet Nam), Fak kao (in Thailand), Bhat kerala (in India), Moc Niet Tu (in China) and Mak kao (in Laos). It is botanically classified in the Cucurbitaceae family and has long been used as a food and traditional medicine in East and Southeast Asia (Iwamoto et al., 1985). As a medicinal plant, in Viet Nam, the seed membranes are used to aid in the relief of dry eyes, as well as to promote healthy vision. Similarly, in traditional Chinese medicine the seeds of gac, known as mubiezi, are employed for a variety of internal and external purposes (Ishida, Turner, Chapman, & Mckeon, 2004). In Viet Nam, gac fruit is very popular because it has been shown to be especially high in lycopene and beta carotene content (Aoki, Kieu, Kuze, Tomisaka, & Chuyen, 2002). Lycopene has been reported to be associated with reduced risk of certain types of cancer, such as prostate cancer, digestive-tract cancers and lung cancer (Goula & Adamopoulos, 2005). Beta-carotene converts to vitamin A in the body (Kim, Giraud, & Driskell, 2007). This is essential for the health and proper development of the cell membranes.
Gac has been consumed in different ways among different cultures. In Viet Nam, gac is used as a colourant for cooking red glutinous rice (Aoki et al., 2002) or xoi gac, served at festive occasions such as new years and weddings (Ishida et al., 2004). In Thailand, the gac fruit (green fruit) is used in cooking, especially immature gac which is commonly consumed as vegetable. The fruit meat has flavours like papaya, is cooked or boiled to consume with chili paste, or used to cook a curry. The reports mentioned above have demonstrated the difference of cultural consumption between societies. Recently, in Thailand the gac fruit entered the commercial production as a functional food e.g. functional drink. However, there has been little information regarding the phytochemicals composition and antioxidant activity of different parts of the gac fruit (mostly reported on fruit) in Thai cultivar. We collected gac fruits from three development stages, namely immature (green), mature (yellow) and ripe (red). Therefore, the purpose of this present study was to investigate the phytochemicals of different parts of the gac fruit and to evaluate the antioxidation activity by using DPPH radical-scavenging activity and ferric reducing/antioxidant power assay.
Section snippets
Plant materials and sample preparation
The fruits of gac were randomly selected from three representative markets in the Nakhonphanom province, in the northeastern region of Thailand during May–July, 2009 and categorised into three groups based on the development stage of the fruit, namely immature (green), mature (yellow) and ripe (red). At each market, 2–3 fruits were sampled from three representative outlets. The fruits were cleaned and separated into pulp, peel seed and aril (seed pulp) of the ripe fruit. Single composite
Results and discussion
We investigated the compositions of phytochemicals (lycopene, β-carotene and lutein, phenolic acid and flavonoid) and the antioxidant activity of different parts of gac fruit namely the peel, pulp, aril and the seed (green, yellow and red). Details of the fruit samples are described in Table 1.
Conclusions
Our data on gac fruit, a Thai cultivar, indicate that the gac fruit is a rich source of phytochemicals, with high levels of carotenoids and phenolic compounds, and high antioxidant activities. We have also demonstrated that the different parts of the gac fruit had different responses in terms of antioxidant activities. Most of the antioxidant activity was found at the immature stage. The decrease in antioxidant activity might be caused by the fact that the levels of phenolics change
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Office of the Higher Education Commission, Thailand for supporting the work under the program Strategic Scholarships for Frontier Research Network and the Mahasarakham University for financial support.
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