ARTICLE IN PRESS

JOURNAL OF
FOOD COMPOSITION
AND ANALYSIS
Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 19 (2006) 664668
www.elsevier.com/locate/jfca

Short Communication

Momordica cochinchinensis Spreng. (gac) fruit

carotenoids reevaluated
Le Thuy Vuong, Adrian A. Franke, Laurie J. Custer, Suzanne P. Murphy
Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, University of Hawaii, 1236 Lauhala street, Suite 504c, Honolulu, HI 96813, USA
Received 5 April 2004; received in revised form 29 October 2004; accepted 7 February 2005

Abstract
Momordica cochinchinensis Spreng., Cucurbitaceae, is indigenous to Southeast Asia and consumed there for dietary as well as
medicinal uses. In Viet Nam, this plant is called gac, and the seed membrane (seed pulp or aril) of the ripe fruit is widely used as a
rice colorant due to its intense red color from its high carotenoid content. Because of conicting reports on the carotenoid
concentrations in gac fruit, we analyzed samples of seed membrane and mesocarp obtained from Viet Nam by HPLC/PDA for
carotenoids and tocopherols. On average in three fruits, total carotenoid concentrations (7standard deviation) were 497 (7154) mg/
g fresh material with lycopene dominating and exceeding beta-carotene concentrations by a factor of approximately ve (408 mg/g
versus 83 mg/g). These values agree with recent data from Japan, but are lower than those from a recent study in the US. A sample of
pulp mixed with mesocarp had signicantly lower concentrations of total carotenoids. The alpha-tocopherol concentration in the
pulp was 76 mg/g. In light of its nutritional value, in particular regarding the remarkably high concentration of lycopene, more
systematic analyses of the factors affecting the nutrient composition of gac fruit are needed.
r 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Beta-carotene; Lycopene; Alpha-tocopherol; Fruit; Momordica cochinchinensis Spreng; Gac

1. Introduction
Momordica cochinchinensis (Lour.) Spreng, belongs to
the melon family (Cucurbitaceae) and is indigenous to
Southeast Asia. The species name cochinchinensis
derives from the Cochinchina region in the northern
part of Viet Nam, although it is grown in many Asian
countries, including Bangladesh (Hasan et al., 1987),
China (Iwamoto et al., 1985), and India (Shadeque and
Baruah, 1984). Only the bright red seed pulp (aril) of the
ripe fruit is used in Viet Nam (Fig. 1). It is used
primarily in the preparation of xoi gac (red rice). The
mesocarp of the ripe fruit, characterized by its yellow
color, is discarded. Further information about the use of
this fruit has been published (Vuong, 2000).

Corresponding author.

E-mail address: adrian@crch.hawaii.edu (A.A. Franke).

0889-1575/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfca.2005.02.001

A 30-day supplementation trial in Viet Nam found

that daily consumption of xoi gac signicantly
improved plasma levels of retinol, alpha- and betacarotenes, and lycopene in pre-school children (Vuong
et al., 2002). The bioavailability of carotenes and
lycopenes in xoi gac was assessed by an in-vitro
digestion technique, simulating the gastric and small
intestinal phases of digestion, and by incubation of
cultures of Caco-2 human intestinal cells with diluted
aqueous (micellar) fraction of digesta. Results suggested
that gac seed membrane and oil are an excellent source
of bioaccessible carotenes and lycopene (Vuong et al.,
2003). In areas where the fruits are grown habitually, the
availability of oil from gac seed membrane resulted in
increased consumption of beta-carotene, lycopene and
essential fatty acids, and lower consumption of lard
(Vuong and King, 2003). Lycopene levels in gac fruit are
higher than those in any of the plant sources reported by
West and Poortvliet (1993), as shown in Fig. 2.

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L.T. Vuong et al. / Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 19 (2006) 664668

There have been several reported analyses of the

carotenoids in gac fruit, but the results vary widely. For
example, Vien (1995) found beta-carotene levels of
458 mg/g of edible portion, while Aoki et al. (2002)
reported only 101 mg/g. Discrepant results are also
highlighted by the reported total carotenoid levels,
ranging from 481 (Aoki et al., 2002) to 2926 mg/g (Ishida
et al., 2004). Thus, to enable a further evaluation of the
nutrient composition of this fruit, we quantied the
principal bioactive components using current state of
the art analytic methods: high-pressure liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection (HPLC/
PDA).
Gac fruit is high in oils (Vien, 1995), and might
be a good source of vitamin E. Thus, a second objective
of the study was to determine the alpha-tocopherol
levels, which have not been previously reported for this
fruit.

665

2. Methods
2.1. Sample selection
Three ripe gac fruits were randomly selected from
home-grown plants in northern Viet Nam. The seed
pulp was removed from the cavity of the fruit and stored
in sealed vials. Samples were stored separately for each
fruit. All samples were hand carried on ice to California
and shipped on dry ice to the Cancer Research Center of
Hawaii, Honolulu, where they were stored at
20 1C
until analyzed. At the time of analysis, two random
samples were selected from each fruit, and duplicate
assays were performed for each sample. Standard
deviations were calculated for the duplicate assays
(inter-assay variation), for the duplicate samples from
each fruit (within-fruit variation, after taking the mean
of the two assays), and for the three fruits (between-fruit
variation, after taking the mean of the two samples).
2.2. Analysis of lipid-phase micronutrients from gac fruit
In a modication of previous protocols (Khachik
et al, 1992; Handelman, 1992), 0.02 mL tocol (0.004 mg/
mL methanol) obtained from Hoffmann LaRoche
(Basel, Switzerland) and 0.040 mL beta-apo-120 -carotenal-tert.-O-butyl-oxime prepared in our laboratory
(Handelman, 1992) (0.004 mg/mL hexane) were added
as internal standards to 0.050.075 g freeze-dried food
materials, and then extracted at least three times with
tetrahydrofurane (THF). Half of the combined THF
extract was hydrolyzed with an equal volume of 10%
KOH in 75% aqueous MeOH for 2.5 h, followed by
addition of an equal amount of NaCl solution (13 g/L)
and repeated extraction with hexane (at least three
times). The combined hexane phases were evaporated to
dryness under a stream of nitrogen and redissolved in

Fig. 1. Ripe gac fruit (scale 1:5). 1: mesocarp, fruit meat and 2: seed
membrane, aril, pulp.

60000

microgram/100g

50000
40000
30000
20000
10000

c
ga

p
se
ro

az
br

hi

il)

)
ta

ng

a(

o(
pi

at
m
to

gu

av

a(

pu

el
m
w

at

er

pa

SA

lp

on

ya
pa

it
ru
ef
ap
gr

Fig. 2. Lycopene concentrations in fruits and vegetables. Source: From Bauerneld (1971).

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L.T. Vuong et al. / Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 19 (2006) 664668

666

0.1 mL THF followed by addition of 0.1 mL of the

HPLC solvent (methanol/dichloromethane/acetonitrile
65:25:10 containing 0.025% butylated hydroxytoluene
as antioxidant and 2 mL/L 0.5 M bis-tris-propane (pH
7.0) as buffer). The other half of the THF extract
(unhydrolyzed) was reduced in volume to 5 mL under
reduced pressure and diluted at a ratio of 1:10 with the
HPLC solvent. Twenty microliter of the extracts were
injected into the HPLC system (Franke et al., 1993)
consisting of an Adsorbosphere C18 (10  4.6 mm i.d.;
5 mm) direct-connect guard column (Alltech, Deereld,
IL) coupled to a Spherex 5 C18 (250  4.6 mm i.d.; 5 mm)
reversed-phase column (Phenomenex, Torrance, CA).
The ow rate was 1.5 mL/min, and monitoring was
performed by diode array detection in the range of
300500 nm. Final values were obtained from peak areas
using calibration curves of solutions of authentic
standards and by adjustment to internal standard
recovery. Inter-assay coefcients of variation for lycopene, beta-carotene, and alpha-tocopherol in gac fruit
were 8%, 6%, and 14%, respectively.

3. Results
Gac seed membrane concentrations of the main
carotenoids and alpha-tocopherol in the three fruits
analyzed in duplicate are presented in Table 1. The
principal carotenoids were lycopene and beta-carotene.
The concentration of lycopene was as high as 705 mg/g,
with an average of 408 mg/g. Alpha-tocopherol was the
main tocopherol, with a mean concentration of 76 mg/g.
Values were remarkably consistent across the two
samples from each fruit, with only the alpha-carotene
samples from fruit #3 having substantial variation.
Alpha-tocopherol and beta-carotene levels showed little
variation across the three fruits. However, values for
beta-carotene and lycopene varied signicantly among
the three fruits.
The mesocarp contains signicantly lower levels of
carotenoids than the seed membrane (Ishida et al., 2004;
Aoki et al., 2002) as would be expected from its yellow
color. Our analysis of a pulpmesocarp mixture of one
ripe fruit (2 extractions, hydrolyzed and non-hydro-

lyzed), found that the concentration of total carotenoids

was 283 mg/g, and that the total tocopherol concentration was 31 mg/g (wet weight). Both values were about
half those found for the pulp only (Table 1). Saponication led to very similar nal concentrations relative to
non-hydrolyzed samples.

4. Discussion
This study extends previously published analyses of
nutrients in gac fruit by including the determination of
tocopherol concentrations. We previously reported that
the oil extract from the membrane contained 357 mg/ml
alpha-tocopherol (Vuong and King, 2003). The fatty
acids content (of seed membrane) was calculated to be
79101 mg/g (Vuong and King, 2003; Vien, 1995;
Vuong, 2000) implying an alpha-tocopherol concentration of about 36 mg/g if all the tocopherol activity is in
the oil. By comparison, results of the alpha-tocopherol
analyses in this study (76 mg/g) are relatively high. This
might be due to the known loss of tocopherols when
processing foods to produce oil (Diplock, 1985). With
almost 8 mg of alpha-tocopherol per 100 g, gac fruit
could contribute signicantly toward the recommended
intake of vitamin E (15 mg/day) of alpha-tocopherol for
adults (Institute of Medicine, 2000).
Published values for carotenoids in gac fruit vary
widely, as shown in Table 2. West and Poortvliet
reported levels up to 892 mg/g using HPLC but handling,
transport, storage and the extraction method were not
described (West and Poortvliet, 1993). A beta-carotene
concentration of 458 mg/g in seed pulp was reported by
Vietnamese scientists, although methods of extraction
and analysis were not available (Vien, 1995). Concentrations of beta-carotene in gac fruit pulp used in a 30day supplementation trial were much lower than these
two earlier reports, with an average beta-carotene
concentration of 175 mg/g (Vuong et al., 2002). The
present study used a well-established extraction and
HPLC method and found even lower beta-carotene
levels, but overall our results were very similar to recent
results reported by Aoki et al. (2002), with techniques comparable to ours. Much higher concentrations

Table 1
Carotenoid and tocopherol concentration ranges of gac seed membrane (mg/g of wet weight)
Fruits

1
2
3
Mean (7std dev.)
a

Alpha-carotene

Beta-carotene

Lycopene

High

Low

High

High

4.2
2.7
4.5
2.8 (70.5)

1.7
1.7
1.9

61.8
49.3
137.2
122.2
74.4
54.9
83.3 (740.4)

Minor contributions by xanthophylls.

Low

Low

424.6
322.8
268.4
231.1
705.0
498.5
408.4 (7178.6)

Total carotenoidsa

Alpha-tocopherol

High

High

Low

487.3
375.1
406.0
370.0
784.0
562.1
497.4 (7153.7)

Low

73.9
48.6
78.5
53.4
135.2
68.4
76.3 (722.2)

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L.T. Vuong et al. / Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 19 (2006) 664668
Table 2
Comparison of reported concentrations of carotenes in gac seed
membrane (mg/g of edible portion)
References

Betacarotene

Lycopene

Total
carotenoids

Methods

West and
Poortvliet
(1993)
Vien (1995)

188

892

HPLC

458

Vuong et al.
(2002)
Aoki et al.
(2002)
Ishida et al.
(2004)

175

Not
available
HPLC/PDA

101

380

481

HPLC/PDA

2926

HPLC/PDA

497

HPLC/PDA

Present study

641 (trans) 1903

(trans)
128 (cis)
170 (cis)
83
408

: data not available; HPLC: high-pressure liquid chromatography;

OCC: open column chromatography; PDA: photodiode array detection.

(46-fold; Table 2) were found in a recent report (Ishida

et al., 2004) that was also based on HPLC/PDA.
Lycopene concentrations in gac pulp as reported by
this study (408 mg/g) are in agreement with a recent
report (380 mg/g; Aoki et al., 2002) and are much higher
than the lycopene concentration usually found in
tomatoes (about 25 mg/g), the principal source of
lycopene in Western diets (US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, 2003). Ishida et al.
(2004) reported even higher values for gac pulp, with an
average across two fruits of 2073 mg/g.
The discrepancies in these reported carotenoid levels
might be due to degradation of carotenoids during
extraction, analysis, transport, and storage as most are
sensitive to light and heat (Bauerneld, 1971). In the
present study, fruits were transported from the market,
the seed membrane was removed and stored briey at
room temperature, and at 0 1C for a short time before
transportation on ice to the US. Upon arrival, samples
were stored in
20 1C until analysis. Under these
transportation and storage conditions, isomerization
and degradation of carotenoids are possible and our
results might be underestimated. However, our values
agree closely with those of Aoki et al. (2002), who
collected their samples directly from a market in Viet
Nam. Ishida et al. (2004) report substantially higher
values, although the frozen samples were shipped to the
United States at an unknown temperature. Transportation and storage conditions are a concern of every study
measuring sensitive analytes, but even after suboptimal
conditions, the levels of carotenoids we found in gac
fruit remained high.
Another explanation for discrepancies in the reported
carotenoid levels might be differences in the ripeness of

667

the samples fruits because carotenoid levels can change

dramatically during ripening. Rodriguez et al. reported
that the number of different carotenoids in M. charantia
(bitter melon) increased from 5 in the immature fruit to
6 at the mature-green and 14 at partly ripe to ripe stages
(Rodriguez et al., 1976). Whether ripening can explain a
several fold difference in total carotenoid levels remains
to be determined. Our results indicate a possible inverse
correlation between beta-carotene and lycopene concentrationsfruit 2 had the highest beta-carotene levels
and the lowest lycopene levels (Table 1). This could also
be due to the ripening stage, since lycopene appears
earlier than beta-carotene in the carotenogenesis pathway, and it is therefore conceivable that less mature
fruits contain higher lycopene and lower beta-carotene
concentrations than more mature fruits.
Carotene concentrations in the mesocarp mixed with
seed membrane found in this study or in the mesocarp
alone reported by Aoki et al. (2002) and Ishida et al.
(2004) were modest, and signicantly lower than in the
seed membrane of the same ripe fruit. The alphatocopherol concentration was also signicantly lower in
mesocarp than in seed membrane. In contrast to other
types of plants in the Momordica genus, such as M.
charantia (bitter melon), ripe M. cochinchinensis seed
membrane is signicantly more nutritious than the
mesocarp, particularly for provitamin A carotenoids,
lycopene and alpha-tocopherol.
Similar nal concentrations in our hydrolyzed and
non-hydrolyzed extracts of ripe fruits indicated a very
low degree of originally esteried carotenoids in gac.
This nding agrees with the recent results reported by
Aoki et al. (2002).
Table 3 shows values, previously published in
Vietnamese, for the macronutrient composition of gac
fruit, as well as calcium and phosphorus levels (Vien,
1995). Gac pulp provides approximately 523 kJ
(125 kcal)/100 g and contains almost 8% lipid. The good
absorption and transport of carotenoids after gac pulp
consumption are probably due to its soft texture and to
these high levels of fatty acids (Vuong et al., 2002;
Vuong and King, 2003; Ribaya-Mercado, 2002). Even
Table 3
Nutrient composition of gac seed membrane
Nutrients
Energy (kJ)
Water (%)
CHO (g)
Lipid (g)
Protein (g)
Cellulose (g)
Ash (g)
Ca (mg)
P (mg)
Modied from Vien (1995).

100 g of edible portion

523 (125 kcal)
77
10.5
7.9
2.1
1.8
0.7
56
6.4

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L.T. Vuong et al. / Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 19 (2006) 664668

when gac pulp is consumed alone, lycopene and betacarotene are highly bioavailable, as demonstrated by a
signicant increase in the human circulation after a 30day feeding trial. Bioaccessibility studies using in-vitro
digestion/caco cell techniques also showed a high
bioavailability for these carotenoids (Vuong et al.,
2002, 2003). This is in sharp contrast to other carotenoid
rich fruits, which show a relatively low carotenoid
bioavailability (Van Het Hof et al., 2000; Williams et al.,
1998).
These additional analyses allow us to re-evaluate the
discrepancies in the published values for carotenoids in
gac fruit, and to conclude that this fruit is an
extraordinarily high source of lycopene, and contains
considerable amounts of beta-carotene and alphatocopherol. Systematic analyses are needed to separate
the effects of ripeness, storage conditions, and natural
variability, on the nutrient composition of this fruit.
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