Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

The Oriental melon (Cucumis melo L. var makuwa Makino) belongs to󰡐Cucurbitaceous󰡑 plants family and it has cultivated various varieties at each region. Oriental melon has long history of cultivation and it is an important agricultural commodity in Korea. Nevertheless the biological a...

The Oriental melon (Cucumis melo L. var makuwa Makino) belongs to󰡐Cucurbitaceous󰡑 plants family and it has cultivated various varieties at each region. Oriental melon has long history of cultivation and it is an important agricultural commodity in Korea. Nevertheless the biological activity of oriental melon has understood poorly. This study was performed to elucidate chemopreventive activity and its functional constituents of oriental melon. Various parts, such as peel, flesh, placenta, seed, stalk and stem․leaf of oriental melon were examined. Chemopreventive activity was evaluated in two parts including antioxidant effects and anticancer activities. Peel and stalk showed significant antioxidant effects compared with other parts. Stalk exhibited significant difference in quinone reductase inductive activity and growth inhibition activity against hepa1c1c7 cell. The contents of functional constituents such as folic acid, vitamin C, total phenol, and total flavonoid were determined. Folic acid and vitamin C are representative constituents of oriental melon. Their contents are the highest in placenta. It has been reported that the phenolic compounds and flavonoids have various biological activities. The contents of total phenol, total flavonoid are the highest significantly in peel and stalk. On the basis of the above results, fractionation was performed to elucidate active principle and hexane, EtOAc, and BuOH fraction were obtained by solvent polarity. EtOAc fraction of oriental melon's peel showed the most potent chemopreventive activity and the activity of EtOH extract was transferred to EtOAc fraction. Nine subfractions from EtOAc fraction were prepared by activity-guided fractionation using silica column chromatography. Antioxidant effect and QR inductive activity were moved to F4, F7, F8 and F2, F3, F4, respectively. Growth inhibitory effect was transferred to F1. Peel of oriental melon showed various biological activities. The above results suggest that oriental melon has excellent chemopreventive activity and can be a good promise as functional food for enhancing health.

Keyword