No abstract

Musa troglodytarum L. (‘Pisang Tongkat Langit’), a banana cultivar which originated from Eastern Indonesia, has an economic potential due to the high β-carotene content on its pulp. Being a climacteric fruit, M. troglodytarum has a short shelf-life that can reduce fruit quality. In this study, the effect of 1.25% (w/v) chitosan coating on M. troglodytarum fruit shelf-life and ACS1 and ACO1 gene expression analysis using quantitative PCR were evaluated. Results showed that the application of chitosan coating delayed the fruit ripening process for two days by delaying several fruit physical and chemical changes. ACS1 and ACO1 gene expression analysis showed a different expression pattern, the expression level was lower on chitosan-coated fruits on the first day compared to control. In conclusion, chitosan-based edible coating delayed M. troglodytarum fruit ripening and changed the ACS1 and ACO1 gene expression pattern, compared with the chitosan coating effect on Cavendish banana which also prolonged fruit ripening and suppressed ACS1 and ACO1 expression in a previous research.

The study of banana herbs and fruits is rarely conducted using multidisciplinary approaches. However, a multidisciplinary approach could be useful for gaining information on many aspects, including remote sensing, biodiversity and biogeography, owing to the uniqueness of bananas. The present article reviews a study on banana herbs from an Indonesian perspective. It starts by obtaining information related to firmness, peel’s colour change, water content and sugar content corresponding to Brix and Starch values. It then proceeds to find the relation between remote sensing (RS) technologies of all these biophysical characteristics and genomics, transcriptomic and metabolomics. Besides this, geospatial sciences, such as geographic information systems (GIS), may help visualise biogeographical factors that help analyse a land’s suitability for growing bananas. Furthermore, the plant canopy, health and plant disease, and the herbs’ water content, analysed through satellite images and aerial photos of drones, helps describe the banana distribution in Indonesia, at both the local and regional levels. Similar techniques may be applied to explore and analyse the characteristics of the fruit. In the end, the integration of these methods can foster advanced studies on bananas, even making it possible for its scope to extend to industries, food technology, post-harvest, and eco-tourism.

Pisang tongkat langit (Musa troglodytarum L.) is a banana cultivar originated from Eastern Indonesia. Previous studies showed that ACS1 and ACO1 are genes that play an important role in banana ethylene biosynthesis. However, characterization and analysis of M. troglodytarum ACS1 and ACO1 genes have not been reported. This study aims to isolate and characterize the ACS1 and ACO1 gene expression profile during fruit ripening process. Gene fragment isolation was performed using PCR based method. Results showed that the isolated genomic fragments of ACS1 was 400 bp and ACO1 was 500 bp. cDNA fragments of ACS1 was 200 bp and ACO1 was 300 bp. Analysis of genomic fragments using BLAST NCBI showed that ACS1 had a high homology with 1818 bp ACS1 gene of Musa acuminata AAA Group (GenBank: GQ396304.1), while ACO1 gene had the highest homology with 1593 bp ACO1 gene of M. acuminata AAA Group (GenBank: AJ223232.1). ACS1 genomic fragments of M. troglodytarum had one intron and two exons, while ACO1 had two introns and three exons. Homology analysis showed that gene fragment of ACS1 and ACO1 of M. troglodytarum had conserved region similar to M. acuminata.

Klutuk Wulung banana ( Musa balbisiana Colla, BB Group) is a climacteric fruit whose ripening is influenced by ethylene production. This banana fruit has a relatively slow ripening process time and long shelf-life compared with A genome banana ( Musa acuminata , AA). Bananas are usually harvested at a pre-climacteric stage and ripened artificially by exogenous ethylene. Hence, the application of exogenous ethylene at the pre-climacteric stage can accelerate the Klutuk Wulung banana ripening. However, there is no report regarding the effect of exogenous ethylene treatment on Klutuk Wulung banana global gene expression. The knowledge of global gene expression of ethylene treated Klutuk Wulung banana will help to understand this fruit ripening process. In this study, global gene expression data of untreated and ethylene treated Klutuk Wulung banana fruit during ripening were available. Total RNA was extracted from fruit pulp for differential expressed gene analysis using RNA-Seq. The RNA-Seq results obtained were ranged from 34,565,252 to 44,752,129 total reads, with 80.5% to 86.7% of reads were mapped against Klutuk Wulung banana genome reference derived from The Banana Genome Hub. In total, 29,968,128 to 37,776,907 transcripts were detected. The transcriptome data discussed in this article were deposited into NCBI's Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) Series with an accession number GSE162077. These data can be used as information to identify gene candidates involved in fruit ripening for the application in banana postharvest program.