Studies on mango fruit ripening with reference to superoxide dismutase and polygalacturonase enzyme activities under different storage conditions.
Prasad N. K., Srivastava G. C., Pandey M.
Author Affiliation: Division of Plant Physiology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India.
Journal of Plant Biology 26 : 161-164
Abstract : Role of superoxide dismutase (SOD), a scavenging enzyme and polygalacturonase (PG), a ripening-associated enzyme was studied during ripening of mango (cv. Dashehari) fruits. Fruits were treated with acetaldehyde (1%), kept in nitrogen at 15°C and at reduced atmospheric pressure. Besides SOD and PG activities, respiration, loss in fresh weight and ethylene evolution were also recorded. Loss in weight of fruits per day was very low in case of acetaldehyde treatment followed by reduced pressure and nitrogen treatments. Respiration rate also followed a similar trend. Climacteric rise in respiration was observed on day 7 following harvest in control fruits whereas in treated fruits it was delayed by 24 h and its magnitude was almost half in reduced pressure and acetaldehyde-treated fruits. Ethylene evolution was negligible in acetaldehyde-treated fruits even on day 10 following harvest. Polygalacturonase enzyme activity was very low under reduced pressure treatment followed by acetaldehyde and nitrogen treatments. SOD activity increased tremendously from day 1 to day 10 following harvest in all the treatments; however, there was a marginal rise in control fruits.