Comparative study of quality changes in Lowland Transgenic RNAiACO1(T2) Tomato Fruit during Storage at Ambient and Low Temperature

Abstract

Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.) are sensitive to the low temperature and easy to be subjected to chilling injury, which causes fruit ripening disorder. This study aimed to investigate the effects of the low temperature on development internal CI symptoms of the wild type and transgenic RNAi ACO1-21 tomato fruit during prolonged storage. This study focuses on the efficacy down regulating ACO1 gene tomato on its quality during the cold storage as comparison to wild type tomato fruit. Tomato fruit was firstly stored at 10° C for 28 days, followed by ripening at 28°C for 10 and 18 days in non-transgenic and lowland transgenic tomato fruit respectively. Chilling injury symptoms such as pitting was observed with more sheet pitting and deeper peel depression in non-transgenic tomato fruit after transferred to ambient temperature (28°C). However, no significant injury and cells were a normal appearance of transgenic RNAi ACO1-21 tomato fruit at the same storage conditions. The results also showed that fruit of lowland transgenic RNAiACO1-21 tomato experienced a significant delayed in skin color development, weight loss and reduced firmness loss compared to the non-transgenic tomato fruit. Furthermore, the transgenic RNAiACO1-21 tomato fruit stored at 10 ºC retain shelf life for 18 days at ambient temperature without any spoilage from chilling injury (CI). While, non-transgenic retain shelf life only 4 days. Thus it may be concluded that the Lowland transgenic RNAiACO1-21 able to delay the softening process and further storage at low temperature extended the postharvest life and maintained the quality of the tomato fruit.

The use of brick-walled evaporative cooler for storage of tomato

“…The temperature has been reported to affect the firmness of tomatoes in which storage at lower temperature delayed the reduction of firmness while a sharp decrease was observed after transfer in room conditions (Najat et al, 2018). Changes in fruit firmness or softening during postharvest occur due to moisture loss and ripening-related cell wall metabolism or cell wall-modifying enzymes (Lara et al, 2019).…”