Effect of sugar-ester edible coating on postharvest life and development of chilling injury in tomatoes during ambient and cold storage

Tomatoes deteriorate rapidly during storage at ambient temperatures due to their climacteric nature, whereas cold storage results in physiological disorders known as chilling injury (CI) that adversely affect fruit quality and postharvest life.
Recently, edible coatings are gaining interest as a safe and effective technology to preserve the postharvest quality of fruit and vegetables.
Here, we investigated the potential of utilizing sucrose-fatty acid ester (SFE) as edible coating to maintain quality and extend postharvest life in tomatoes during storage at 20 and 5°C. We found that at 20°C, coating suppressed both climacteric ethylene production and respiration rates, and inhibited fruit firmness loss in addition to reducing weight loss.
Uncoated fruits at 5°C developed CI symptoms (translucent water-soaked areas, cell membrane-damage measured as ion leakage, and loss of firmness) within 7 d.
These symptoms were noticeably curbed in the coated fruits at 5°C, as the CI index was reduced by 60% throughout the 28 d storage.
Application of coating at 5°C also reduced fruit respiration rates and water loss.
The RNA-Seq analysis revealed 7,628 differentially expressed genes between SFE-coated and uncoated fruits at both 20 and 5°C, affecting key members associated with ethylene biosynthesis (e.g., ACS2), cell wall degradation (e.g., PG), and cold response (e.g., DHN). ACS2 and PG expression notably decreased while DHN expression increased.
Together, these findings indicate that the application of SFE coating could be an effective tool either to extend postharvest shelf life in tomatoes or to alleviate CI symptoms.

IV Asian Horticultural Congress – AHC2023

M. Muqadas, O.W. Mitalo, C. Yano, K. Ohashi, N. Hira, T. Akagi, K. Ushijima, Y. Kubo

shelf life, ethylene, respiration, chilling injury, ion leakage, RNA-Seq

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2024.1404.59