Some biochemical changes and transcriptome analysis associated with ‘Queen’ pineapple fruit blackheart development

Abstract

Blackheart (BH) disease is a major problem of pineapple (Ananas comosus L. ‘Comte de Paris’) during storage. In this paper, physiological and molecular responses to the blackheart (BH) disease of pineapple were determined during storage at room temperature (25 ℃). The results showed that the BH development of pineapple was accompanied by an increased rate of superoxide free radical (O2•−) production, increased malondialdehyde (MDA) content and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity, reduced the antioxidant enzymes activities of peroxidase (POD), superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and decreased amount of ascorbic acid (AsA) in flesh (F), flesh adjacent to the core (F/C) and core (C) tissues of pineapple. Meanwhile, a transcriptome analysis identified many differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with BH development. The up-regulated DEGs were significantly enriched in ribosome and the down-regulated DEGs were mainly related to the starch and sucrose metabolism. These results provide a theoretical basis for the mechanism of pineapple BH.