''Capparis masaikai'', known as mabinlang,
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Biodiversity occurrence data for Capparis masaikai H. Léveillé
grows in the subtropical region of the
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...
province of
China and bear fruits of tennis-ball size. The mature seeds are used in
traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medicine, alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logica ...
.
They are also used as sweets; the seeds elicit a sweet taste when chewed.
[X Liu, S Maeda, Z Hu, T Aiuchi, K Nakaya, Y Kurihara. Purification, complete amino acid sequence and structural characterization of the heat-stable sweet protein, mabinlin II. Eur J Biochem 1993. 211(1–2):281-7. ]
The origin of the sweet taste was identified as sweet-tasting
proteins
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respondi ...
named
mabinlins. They are highly sweet, 100-400 times sweeter than sucrose on a weight basis.
[S Nirasawa, T Nishino, M Katahira, S Uesugi, Z Hu, Y Kurihara. Structures of heat-stable and unstable homologues of the sweet protein mabinlin. Eur J Biochem 1994, 223(3):989-95. ]
References
masaikai
Flora of China
{{Brassicales-stub