Effects of procyanidin treatment on the ripening and softening of banana fruit during storage

Abstract

Cell wall degradation accompanied with softening is very common in harvested fruit. To develop a facile postharvest approach, which can be used at ambient temperature, for suppressing softening and maintaining quality of banana fruit, influences of 1% procyanidin (PA) solution treatment on pulp firmness, total soluble solids (TSS) in pulp, peel hue value, chlorophyll content of peel, fruit ethylene production, fruit respiration rate, malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration in peel, peel ion leakage, activities and expression levels of enzymes related with fruit softening during storage at 23 ± 2°C were investigated. Results indicated that PA treatment effectively inhibited ripening-associated processes, as compared to the control banana fruit, PA-treated fruit exhibited higher firmness, hue value and chlorophyll content, lower TSS content, ethylene production, respiration rate, MDA concentration, and ion leakage. Besides, lower activities of cell wall-degrading enzymes polygalacturonase (PG), pectin methyl esterase (PME), pectate lyase (PL), and cellulase (CX) and expression levels of PG, PME, PL were also observed in PA-treated fruit. These results would provide theoretical basis to help solve fruit quality decline of banana fruit during storage in further research.