Hydrogen Sulfide Maintains Good Nutrition and Delays Postharvest Senescence in Postharvest Tomato Fruits by Regulating Antioxidative Metabolism

• Published in: Journal of plant growth regulation 2021-12, Vol.40 (6), p.2548-2559
• Main Authors: Zhong, Ting-Ying, Yao, Gai-Fang, Wang, Sha-Sha, Li, Ting-Ting, Sun, Ke-Ke, Tang, Jun, Huang, Zhong-Qin, Yang, Feng, Li, Yan-Hong, Chen, Xiao-Yan, Hu, Lan-Ying, Zhang, Hua, Hu, Kang-Di
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agriculture; Ammonia; Anthocyanins; Antioxidants; Ascorbic acid; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Catalase; Correlation analysis; Enzymes; Flavonoids; Fruits; Fumigation; Gene expression; Guaiacol; Hydrogen peroxide; Hydrogen sulfide; L-Ascorbate peroxidase; Life Sciences; Lipoxygenase; Liquid oxygen; Malondialdehyde; Metabolism; Metabolites; Nutrition; Nutritive value; Peroxidase; Phenylalanine; Plant Anatomy/Development; Plant Physiology; Plant Sciences; Polyphenol oxidase; Principal components analysis; Ripening; Senescence; Superoxide dismutase; Tomatoes
• ISSN: 0721-7595; 1435-8107
• DOI: 10.1007/s00344-021-10377-4

As a signaling molecule, hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) plays an indispensable role in the modulation of ripening and senescence in fruits and vegetables. To explore the role of H 2 S in regulating metabolism of postharvest tomato, ripening-related physiological parameters, activities of antioxidant enzymes and gene expression were analyzed in H 2 S-fumigated tomato fruits. These results show that H 2 S significantly delayed the color transition and softening of tomato fruit, and maintained higher level of flavonoids and lower level of anthocyanin during storage. Besides, H 2 S could maintain higher level of nutritional-related metabolites, such as reducing sugar, ascorbic acid during postharvest storage. Moreover, H 2 S decreased the rate of O 2 − production, inhibited the production of H 2 O 2 and malondialdehyde (MDA), enhanced the activities of antioxidant enzymes including ascorbate peroxidase (APX), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and guaiacol peroxidase (POD) in tomato fruits, while reduced the activities of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and lipoxygenase (LOX). Besides, the expression of the antioxidant-encoding genes SlCAT2 , SlPOD12 was generally upregulated with H 2 S fumigation. Principal component analysis (PCA) suggests that H 2 S induced significant discrepancy mainly to the differences in firmness, anthocyanin, flavonoid and the activity of guaiacol peroxidase (POD), and the correlation analysis further shows that H 2 S affected pigment metabolism and nutritional quality. In conclusion, H 2 S could maintain better appearance and nutritional quality, and prolong the storage period of postharvest tomato fruits through activating the antioxidative system.