Context: Cucumis prophetarum Linn. (Cucurbitaceae) fruit is used for inflammatory-related problems and is proved to be possessing anticancer and hepatoprotective effects. Objective: The present investigation was to study the effect of different fractions of C. prophetarum on antidiabetic and antioxidant activity. Materials and methods: Aqueous crude extract (CE) of C. prophetarum fruits was fractionated into water soluble fraction 1 (F1), chloroform fraction 2 (F2), basic fraction 3 (F3), and neutral fraction 4 (F4) by acid-base extraction. CE and its fractions at different doses (0.02-0.1 mg/mL) were subjected to antidiabetic (a-amylase and a-glucosidase inhibition assays) and antioxidant (DPPH, superoxide radical scavenging (SO) and metal chelation) evaluation. Results: F1 exhibited effective antidiabetic activity (p50.05) with an IC 50 value of 20.6 and 59.9 mg/mL. The activity decreased in the order of CE4F44F34F2, according to a-amylase assay, which were the same, with the exception of the rank order of F4 and CE, as the a-glucosidase assay. Furthermore, F1 (IC 50 ¼ 73 mg/mL) showed better reducing ability than CE4F44F24F3 (IC 50 ¼ 78-272 mg/mL), according to the DPPH assay. In SO and metal chelation assays, F1 showed the highest activity (IC 50 ¼ 101 and 147 mg/mL), respectively; the activity decreased in the order of CE4F44F34F2 (IC 50 ¼ 126-469 mg/mL) for SO and 194-944 mg/mL for metal chelation assay.
Conclusion:The results indicate that F1 possesses potent in vitro antidiabetic and antioxidant activities.