Investigations of seeds oil from Cucurbita pepo L. ‘Miranda’, ‘Golosemianaja’, and ‘Herakles’ pumpkin cultivars grown in Lithuania revealed that crude fat contents ranged from 44.4% to 47.3%, although ‘Miranda’ cultivar seeds consistently and significantly had the lowest content (p <0.05). Seed oils contained appreciable amounts of unsaturated fatty acids (approximately 83%), of which polyunsaturated fatty acids, particularly palmitic, stearic, oleic and linoleic acids, were dominant with proportions ranging from 64.29% to 66.71% of the total amount of fatty acids. Seeds oil were a particularly rich source of linoleic acid (66%), among which ‘Miranda’ cultivar seeds had the significantly highest content. Further investigation identified pumpkin seeds oil as a good source of phenolic compounds, particularly cvs. ‘Golosemianaja’ and ‘Miranda’ oil. Methanolic seed oil extracts were characterized by statistically significant differences in their antioxidant activity, with the highest antioxidant activity found in cultivar ‘Miranda’, followed by ‘Golosemianaja’. The antioxidant activity level increased proportionally with the total phenolic content, thus establishing a linear relationship between DPPH-radical scavenging activity and total phenolic content.

This abstract was accepted to be presented at the conference entitled “40 Years of Horticulture Education in Cluj-Napoca” Cluj-Napoca, September 27, 2017, being included in ‘Book of Abstracts’ of this special-anniversary event (http://conference.shst.ro). All accepted papers will be published in a special issue of Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici Cluj-Napoca journal.