Abstract
Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) is an important vegetable crop of several countries in the tropics. Althoughbitter gourd fruits contain bioactive components with many important medicinal properties, it is usually grown as an ornamentalin Korea. Bitter gourd has recently received growing attention due to its anti-diabetic compound in immature fruits. But therehave been few researches on its cultural practices and functional components. This study was conducted to analyze charantin,anti-diabetic compound, contents among germplasm to select accessions with high charantin content in bitter gourd. The charantincontent of bitter gourd fruits were investigated in 15 days after fruit setting among 31 accessions of bitter gourd by HPLC. Thecontents of charantin and yields ranged from 15.1 to 161.4 μg·g-1dry-weight basis and 221 to 2,097 g by a plant, respectively.Five accessions, ‘K169998’, ‘K042800’, ‘K170002’, ‘Hwanock’ and ‘Nockwoo’ showed highest charantin contents as 143.7,104.6, 103.5, 161.4, 101.1μg·g-1, respectively. These results can be applied for selection methods to determine bitter gourd accessionswith highest charantin content, which have a potential to be an anti-diabetic diet. Future breeding and genetic emphases in bittergourd improvement should be placed on the development of nutritious, high-yielding cultivars with superior resistance to majordiseases and exceptional fruit quality. This study can be used for preliminary data in stable, high quality bitter gourd productionand selection. Further studies are needed to understand underlying mechanism determining charantin content variations in differentfruit maturation stages in bitter gourd.
