Abstract
Due to post-harvest losses more than 30% of harvested fruits will not reach the consumers’ plate. Fungal pathogens play a key role in those losses, as they cause most of the fruit rots and the customer complaints. Many of the fungal pathogens are already present in the unripe fruit but remain quiescent during fruit growth until a particular phase of fruit ripening and senescence. The pathogens sense the developmental change and switch into the devastating necrotrophic life style that causes fruit rotting. Colonization of unripe fruit by the fungus initiates defensive responses that limit fungal growth and development. However, during fruit ripening several physiological processes occur that correlate with increased fruit susceptibility. In contrast to plant defenses in unripe fruit, the defense posture of ripe fruit entails a different subset of defense responses that will end with fruit rotting and losses. This review will focus on several aspects of molecular and metabolic events associated with fleshy fruit responses induced by post-harvest fungal pathogens during fruit ripening.
Highlights
Food waste from the grower to the consumer is an important issue as it depletes natural resources
Post-harvest fruit rotting are a major cause of those losses and are caused by fungal pathogens after fruit ripening
In a manner similar to foliar diseases that occur in the field, several factors as: fungal pathogenicity, host response and environment determine the outcome of host resistance or susceptibility
Summary
Food waste from the grower to the consumer is an important issue as it depletes natural resources. Post-harvest fungal pathogens germinate and enter the fruit by breaching the host cuticle (Emery et al, 2000; Alkan et al, 2015) This is achieved by: degrading host cuticle (Rijkenberg et al, 1980), entering through natural openings of the host and wounds (Barkai-Golan, 2001), or by living endophytically in the stem end (Johnson et al, 1992; Prusky et al, 2009). When those insidious pathogens encounter unripe fruit these fungi often remain quiescent and confined to the initial site of introduction. Fully necrotrophic fungi as Botrytis can infect and live in a restricted 1–3 cells of unripe fruit without damaging the surrounding tissue (Cantu et al, 2008a)
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