Bioactive compounds and the antioxidant capacities of seed oils from pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) and bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

Abstract

Pomegranate and bitter gourd are two of the few edible fruits that contain conjugated α-linolenic acids (CLnAs) in their seeds. The CLnAs have been associated with many effects that are beneficial to health, such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Samples of cold-pressed oils from pomegranate and bitter gourd seeds were evaluated for their phytochemical compositions (fatty acids, tocopherols and phytosterols), their qualities and their stability parameters. The in vitro antioxidant capacities of these oils were evaluated by β-carotene bleaching, DPPH• scavenging, oxygen radical absorbance capacity (DRAC) and ABTS• scavenging assays. Several differences in the compositions of the fatty acids, the bioactive compounds and the antioxidant capacities were observed for the two seed oils (pomegranate and bitter gourd) when they were assessed. The highest contents for the phytochemicals (conjugated α-linolenic acids, β-sitosterols, γ-tocopherols) and the in vitro antioxidant capacities were found in the pomegranate seed oil, when using both the DPPH• and ABTS• methods. These results have indicated that seed oils with bioactivity properties can be a challenge for more research, in order to address absorption, health benefits and technological applications.

Fruit Seeds as Sources of Bioactive Compounds: Sustainable Production of High Value-Added Ingredients from By-Products within Circular Economy

“…Yoshime et al [45] evaluated the conjugated α-linolenic acids (CLnAs) present in oil extracted by cold pressing pomegranate seeds, as well as bitter gourd seeds ( Momordica charantia L.). These compounds were associated with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.…”

“…In the same line of research, Dorta et al [40] assessed the effects of EtOH, water, and acetone as solvents and different temperatures on the extraction of antioxidants from mango peel and seeds. Table 1 contains some studies [15,28,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69] regarding the extraction of bioactive compounds from fruit seeds and the bioactivity already studied. It is clear that new studies regarding fruit seeds should be focused on the optimization of extraction conditions and on the extraction techniques so that new value-added extracts can be potentially used as ingredients by pharmaceutical and food sectors.…”

Hypolipidemic and antioxidant effects of the juice and water seed extracts of two pomegranate species in high-cholesterol diet fed rats

“…EA is the major constituent of the fruit pomegranate (Negi et al, 2003). Pomegranate's antioxidant and anti-atherosclerotic effects have already been described and were indicated to be mainly due to its high levels of phenolic compounds (Morais et al, 2020;Yoshime et al, 2019) such as EA (Negi et al, 2003;Pérez-Vicente et al, 2002;Mertens-Talcott et al, 2006). The antioxidant potential of pomegranate juice or seed extract is about two-to threefold higher than that of green tea (Gil et al, 2000).…”

Gelatin-Based Antimicrobial Films Incorporating Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) Seed Juice by-Product

“…Seeds comprise around 10% of the total fruit weight, depending on the climatic conditions for growing as well as the maturation degree on harvesting [22]. Pomegranate seeds are a rich source of total unsaturated fatty acids (punicid, linolenic and linoleic acids), proteins, minerals, vitamins, pectin, isoflflavones (mainly genistein) and other polyphenols [23].…”