Systems Biology Applied to the Study of Papaya Fruit Ripening: The Influence of Ethylene on Pulp Softening.
Cells
; 10(9)2021 09 07.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34571988
ABSTRACT
Papaya is a fleshy fruit that undergoes fast ethylene-induced modifications. The fruit becomes edible, but the fast pulp softening is the main factor that limits the post-harvest period. Papaya fast pulp softening occurs due to cell wall disassembling coordinated by ethylene triggering that massively expresses pectinases. In this work, RNA-seq analysis of ethylene-treated and non-treated papayas enabled a wide transcriptome overview that indicated the role of ethylene during ripening at the gene expression level. Several families of transcription factors (AP2/ERF, NAC, and MADS-box) were differentially expressed. ACO, ACS, and SAM-Mtase genes were upregulated, indicating a high rate of ethylene biosynthesis after ethylene treatment. The correlation among gene expression and physiological data demonstrated ethylene treatment can indeed simulate ripening, and regulation of changes in fruit color, aroma, and flavor could be attributed to the coordinated expression of several related genes. Especially about pulp firmness, the identification of 157 expressed genes related to cell wall metabolism demonstrated that pulp softening is accomplished by a coordinated action of several different cell wall-related enzymes. The mechanism is different from other commercially important fruits, such as strawberry, tomato, kiwifruit, and apple. The observed behavior of this new transcriptomic data confirms ethylene triggering is the main event that elicits fast pulp softening in papayas.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Carica
/
Ethylenes
/
Fruit
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
Cells
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Brazil