Abstract
Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor acts on the inhibition of ACE and causes a decrease in blood pressure. There have been several reports on screening of ACE inhibitors from natural food products and protein hydrolysates of various food sources. Ripe Cucurbita moschata Duch has been used as an oriental medicine in Korea. To isolate ACE inhibitors, crude water extracts of the edible portion of ripe Cucurbita moschata Duch were obtained after heating in water at 95$^{\circ}C$ for 2 h. Crude extracts were then filtered using PM-10 and YM-1 membranes. The membrane-filtered solution was loaded onto Sephadex G-15 column equlibrated with a phosphate buffer. Among the four major fractions of gel permeation chromatography, the second fraction had the highest inhibitory activity of 65%. Further purification of the fraction using reversed-phase HPLC with a $C_{18}$ column produced ACE inhibitors, which were identified as a mixture having molecular mass of 222 and 273 by Tandem mass spectrometry.