Revista de Bioprocessamento e Biotécnicas

Evaluation of Egusi Melon (Colocythis citrullus) Accessions in Nigeria Using Proximate and Fatty Acid Analysis

Abstract

Gado AA*, Muhammad ML, Falusi OA, Adebola MO, Madaki FM2 and Kolo JT2

Colocynthis citrullus is a species of melon, popularly called ‘Egusi’ in West Africa. It belongs to a large family
called Curcubitaceae, which consist of 119 genera and about 925 species. In order to assess variations in nutritional
value of Egusi Melon (Colocynthis citrullus) seeds, proximate and fatty acid composition of eight accessions of the
crop were carried out. The accessions were selected from collections of family curcubitaceae made across Nigeria.
The analyses of shelled Melon seeds were done using the standard Method of Association of Analytical Chemists.
The data collected from the proximate and fatty acid constituents were used for Analysis of variance and Duncan
multiple range test (DMRT) was used to separate the means. The results of the proximate and fatty acid composition
showed significant differences (p < 0.05) among the different melon accessions. Accession NGR-NG-02 had highest
value of ash (8.71%), crude fibre (6.43) and crude protein (35.37%) contents. The highest stearic (10.03%) and oleic
(18.49%) values were recorded for NGR-NG-02 and NGR-NG-20 respectively. While the highest palmitic (61.33%)
and linoleic (65.84%) values were recorded for NGR-NG-29. The high significant variation observed among the
accessions could be an indication of high genetic diversity among Nigerian Egusi melon.