Momordica charantia (bitter melon) is commonly known as vegetable insulin, but the mechanisms underlying its hypoglycemic effect remain unclear. To address this issue, the effects of bitter melon extracts on postprandial glycemic responses have been investigated in rats. An aqueous extract (AE), methanol fraction (MF) and methanol insoluble fraction (MIF) were prepared from bitter melon. An ora...

The SBP-box gene family is specific to plants and encodes a class of zinc finger-containing transcription factors with a broad range of functions. Although SBP-box genes have been identified in numerous plants, including green algae, moss, silver birch, snapdragon, Arabidopsis, rice, and maize, there is little information concerning SBP-box genes, or the corresponding miR156/157, function in me...

Among the fundamental questions regarding cultivated plants is their geographic origin and region of domestication. The genus Cucumis, which includes cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and melon (Cucumis melo), has numerous wild African species, and it has therefore been assumed that melon originated in Africa. For cucumber, this seemed less likely because wild cucumbers exist in India and a closely re...

To investigate radical scavenging effects and protective activities of bitter melon (Momordica charantia) against oxidative stress, in vitro and a cellular system using LLC-PK1 renal epithelial cells were used in this study. The butanol (BuOH) fraction of bitter melon scavenged 63.4% and 87.1% of 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radicals at concentrations of 250 and 500 μg/mL, respectively....

Background: Several studies reported the clinical features of IgE-mediated hypersensitivity after ingestion of melon. Melon allergy is a common IgE-mediated fruit allergy in Iran. This prompted us to investigate immunochemical and molecular properties of the major allergen in melon fruit, to compare the IgE-binding capacity of the natural protein with the recombinant allergen, and to determine ...

Lipoxygenases (LOXs) play important role in the synthesis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which influence the aroma of fruit. In this study, we elucidate that there is a positive relationship between LOXs activity and VOC production in melon (Cucumis melo), and CmLOX genes are involved in fruit aroma generation in melon. To this end, we tested four aroma types of melon that feature a thin...

Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) plays an important role in aroma volatile compounds synthesis of plants. In this paper, we tried to explore the relationship between CmADHs and the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in oriental melon. Three different aroma types of melon were used as materials. The principle component analysis of three types of melon fruit was conducted. We also measured the CmADHs e...

OBJECTIVE Food contributes in measurable body burden of the widely used organophosphate pesticides. We designed a randomized controlled open label trial in Mashhad University Hospital in Iran, to study the possible alterations in cholinesterase activity resulting from consuming market melon known to be exposed to diazinon. PATIENTS AND METHODS Fifty-three young healthy volunteers were recruit...

MicroRNAs represent a family of small endogenous, non-coding RNAs that play critical regulatory roles in plant growth, development, and environmental stress responses. Hami melon is famous for its attractive flavor and excellent nutritional value, however, the mechanisms underlying the fruit development and ripening remains largely unknown. Here, we performed small RNA sequencing to investigate...

Genetic assessment was carried out on three Italian melon accessions by sequence and structural analysis of the internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) from three populations belonging to two Cucumis melo L. varieties (madras and tendral). Alignment of the 18S-5.8S-26S sequences from three melon accessions showed that there were three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and one short insertion-...