Apple polyphenols delay postharvest senescence and quality deterioration of 'Jinshayou' pummelo fruit during storage

Ya-Jie Zhang; Qiang Huang; Ao-Ran Li; Zeng-Yu Gan; Jiao-Ke Zeng; Wen-Bin Kai; Chu-Ying Chen; Jin-Yin Chen

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.1117106

Apple polyphenols delay postharvest senescence and quality deterioration of 'Jinshayou' pummelo fruit during storage

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Jan 19:13:1117106. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.1117106. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ya-Jie Zhang¹, Qiang Huang¹, Ao-Ran Li¹, Zeng-Yu Gan¹, Jiao-Ke Zeng¹, Wen-Bin Kai¹, Chu-Ying Chen¹, Jin-Yin Chen¹

Affiliation

¹ Jiangxi Key Laboratory for Postharvest Technology and Nondestructive Testing of Fruits & Vegetables, College of Agronomy, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China.

Abstract

Introduction: Apple polyphenols (AP), derived from the peel of mature-green apples, are widely used as natural plant-derived preservatives in the postharvest preservation of numerous horticultural products.

Methods: The goal of this research was to investigate how AP (at 0.5% and 1.0%) influences senescence-related physiological parameters and antioxidant capacity of 'Jinshayou' pummelo fruits stored at 20°C for 90 d.

Results: The treating pummelo fruit with AP could effectively retard the loss of green color and internal nutritional quality, resulting in higher levels of total soluble solid (TSS) content, titratable acidity (TA) content and pericarp firmness, thus maintaining the overall quality. Concurrently, AP treatment promoted the increases in ascorbic acid, reduced glutathione, total phenols (TP) and total flavonoids (TF) contents, increased the scavenging rates of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH) and hydroxyl radical (•OH), and enhanced the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, peroxidase, ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and glutathione reductase (GR) as well as their encoding genes expression (CmSOD, CmCAT, CmPOD, CmAPX, and CmGR), reducing the increases in electrolyte leakage, malondialdehyde content and hydrogen peroxide level, resulting in lower fruit decay rate and weight loss rate. The storage quality of 'Jinshayou' pummelo fruit was found to be maintained best with a 1.0% AP concentration.

Conclusion: AP treatment can be regarded as a promising and effective preservative of delaying quality deterioration and improving antioxidant capacity of 'Jinshayou' pummelo fruit during storage at room temperature.

Keywords: ROS-scavenging system; antioxidant capacity; apple polyphenols; nutritional quality; postharvest senescence; ‘Jinshayou’ pummelo.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Jiangxi Provincial and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 20212BAB205011 and 32002104), and the Modern Agricultural Technology System of Jiangxi Province in China (No. JXARS-07).