Abstract
Metabolic changes occurring in ripe or senescent fruits during postharvest storage lead to a general deterioration in quality attributes, including decreased flavor and ‘off-aroma’ compound generation. As a consequence, measures to reduce economic losses have to be taken by the fruit industry and have mostly consisted of storage at cold temperatures and the use of controlled atmospheres or ripening inhibitors. However, the biochemical pathways and molecular mechanisms underlying fruit senescence in commercial storage conditions are still poorly understood. In this sense, metabolomic platforms, enabling the profiling of key metabolites responsible for organoleptic and health-promoting traits, such as volatiles, sugars, acids, polyphenols and carotenoids, can be a powerful tool for further understanding the biochemical basis of postharvest physiology and have the potential to play a critical role in the identification of the pathways affected by fruit senescence. Here, we provide an overview of the metabolic changes during postharvest storage, with special attention to key metabolites related to fruit quality. The potential use of metabolomic approaches to yield metabolic markers useful for chemical phenotyping or even storage and marketing decisions is highlighted.
Highlights
Fruit growth, ripening and senescence are complex processes, controlled by multiple developmental and environmental signals, and their molecular mechanisms remain unclear [1].Fruits undergo important metabolic changes during ripening, including chlorophyll breakdown, anthocyanin or carotenoid pigment accumulation, cell wall degradation and the synthesis of low-weight metabolites, which function to increase their attractiveness to seed dispersers [2]
gas chromatography (GC)–mass spectrometry (MS) can be coupled with headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME), which allows the detection of specific volatiles present in a sample [22]
Apart from the most abundant sugars, i.e., sucrose, glucose and fructose, fruits contain minor sugar and alcohol derivatives, such as sorbitol, galactinol, raffinose, myo-inositol and trehalose [46]. Even if those compounds may be at low concentrations, they seem to be crucial for fruit behavior during storage, as they can alleviate the negative effects of the abiotic stresses underlying postharvest conditions
Summary
Fruit growth, ripening and senescence are complex processes, controlled by multiple developmental and environmental signals, and their molecular mechanisms remain unclear [1]. Once fruits are removed from the plant and until they reach consumers on the market, a period known as postharvest ripening or senescence occurs—the duration of which is variable (from days to weeks) and the effects of which mainly depend on fruit metabolism and ripening status at harvest Climacteric fruits, such as tomatoes, kiwi or avocados, which exhibit a concomitant peak of ethylene production and a sudden rise in respiration at the onset of ripening [3], can ripen after harvest. Stress situations induce the synthesis of compounds involved in plant protection, and trigger the accumulation of compatible metabolites, reactive oxygen species (ROS)-scavenging enzymes and changes in carbon metabolism [17,18] In this sense, metabolomic platforms, allowing the simultaneous detection and quantification of hundreds of metabolites, offer the possibility to improve our knowledge about the molecular mechanisms underlying fruit senescence under commercial storage conditions
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