Free Radical Scavenging Activities and Nutritional Value of Lagenaria siceraria: A Nutriment Creeper

In the present study, a modified Osborne fractionation method was followed to isolate albumins, globulins, prolamins and glutelins successively from seeds of Lagenaria siceraria. This research work was undertaken to determine amino acid content, molecular weight distribution and antioxidant potential of isolated protein fractions of L. siceraria seed. The antioxidant activity of the protein fractions was evaluated using DPPH, ABTS, nitric oxide radical scavenging, hydrogen peroxide scavenging, lipid peroxidation, reducing power and phosphomolybdate assays. The molecular weights of these fractions were in the range of 10–260 kDa. Globulin contains highest amount of hydrophobic amino acid (138.1 mg/gm) as well as essential amino acid (165.6 mg/g) as compared to other fractions. This resulted in highest antioxidant activity with nutritional values. The percentage of inhibition of the protein fractions differs significantly from each other (p ≤ 0.05). The results indicate that the protein fractions of L. siceraria may be helpful in the therapy of various oxidative-stress-induced diseases and development of novel nutritional food supplements.