Author Identifier (ORCID)
Himani R. Kekiri Obada Gamage’s ORCID record 
Mekhala Vithana’s ORCID record
Abstract
Cucurbitaceae is a major plant family within the kingdom Plantae, encompassing popular food crops such as zucchini, squash, pumpkins, and melons. With the growing interest in discovering novel bioactive peptides (BPs) from various plant sources, Cucurbitaceae crops have emerged as a popular candidate for isolating nutrient-enriched peptides due to their diverse applications in the nutritional and pharmaceutical sectors, with experimentally evidenced antihypertensive, antidiabetic, antimicrobial, and anticancer properties. However, current investigations are limited to a few economically important species and are seed-centric within this family, with limited in vivo and clinical validations for their in vitro functional properties. In this review, we have summarized the peer-reviewed original proteomic research and reviews, written in English, reported to date on peptide production from protein extraction to hydrolysis, identification, and functional characterization, as well as their industrial translation, excluding those without a standard functional validation. This work discusses and evaluates the applied protocols, limitations, and challenges in BP discovery and industrial utilization, highlighting understudied cucurbits as a potential source of novel BPs and insights into broadening future research scopes and providing opportunities aligned with plant-derived peptide discovery.
Keywords
bioactive, Cucurbitaceae, industrial utilization, plant peptides, proteomics
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
9-1-2026
Article Number
e72338
E-ISSN
20487177
Volume
14
Issue
9
Publication Title
Food Science & Nutrition
Publisher
Wiley
School
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science / School of Science
Funding Information
This project was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science (grant number CE200100012) and Edith Cowan University, Western Australia.
Funding received from the Australian Research Council (ARC)
CE200100012
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Gamage, H. R. K. O., Bahmani, M., Bose, U., Vithana, M., Colgrave, M. L., & Juhász, A. (2026). Bioactive peptides from the Cucurbitaceae family: From identification and health-promoting functions to industrial utilization. Food Science & Nutrition, 14(9), e72338. https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.72338