Impact of leaf curl disease on capsaicinoids in mature fruits of hot pepper (Capsicum annuum)

The impact of the leaf curl disease caused by a begomovirus on capsaicinoids content in diseased fruits of six cultivars of hot pepper was investigated. The amounts of capsaicin, dihydrocapsaicin and nor-dihydrocapsaicin were found invariably higher in the diseased samples as compared to the healthy. The inter-varietal variation of capsaicin in healthy fruits ranged from 0.51 to 2.25 mg/g, dihydrocapsaicin 0.31 to 2.98 mg/g and nor-dihydrocapsaicin 0.04 to 0.75 mg/g where as in diseased fruits capsaicin ranged from 1.72 to 2.67 mg/g, dihydrocapsaicin 1.09 to 3.52 mg/g and nor-dihydrocapsaicin 0.12 to 0.86 mg/g. The highest impact of virus infection was recorded in Selection–16, which showed almost a four fold increase in dihydrocapsaicin and three fold in capsaicin and nor-dihydrocapsaicin contents in the fruits as a result of disease infestation. The protein, total phenols, antioxidant and free radical scavenging activities were also found higher in the diseased fruits than that of healthy.