*3.5. Pepino*

Pepino (*Solanum muricatum* Aiton), a close relative to tomato and potato, is an herbaceous Andean domesticated species grown for its juicy, sweet, and aromatic fruit, with increasing commercial and export interest in South America from exotic fruit markets [219]. Fruit color may be white, cream, yellow, maroon, or purplish [220]. Unripe pepino fruit is green while 51 days from fruit set, newly-acquired purple stripes appear, resulting in fruit softening along with decreases in total pectin and hemicellulose content [221].

Various health benefits were revealed for pepino, including treatment of diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, heartburn (indigestion), cancer, kidney, constipation, and hemorrhoids [220], activities mostly attributed to the significant amounts of vitamin C, carotenoids, and phenolics [222]. Moreover, Hsu et al. [222] reported the antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, and antiglycative effects of pepino extract. In the same study, aqueous and ethanol extracts had similar content of total phenolic acids (averaged at 1145 mg/100 g dw) but aqueous extracts were richer than ethanol extracts in terms of ascorbic acid (43.8 vs. 6.6 mg/100 g dw), total flavonoids (875 vs. 461 mg/100 g dw), cinnamic acid (75.7 vs. 23.0 mg/100 g dw), ferulic acid (82.3 vs. 11.8 mg/100 g dw), rosmarinic acid (47.2 vs. 8.4 mg/100 g dw), quercetin (126.5 vs. 90.3 mg/100 g dw), and naringenin (57.2 vs. 14.7 mg/100 g dw) [222].

The main pigments isolated in the fruit vegetables are presented in Table 2.


**Table 2.** The main pigments isolated in various fruit vegetables.
