The Molecular Regulation of Ethylene in Fruit Ripening

Abstract

Fleshy fruits are major sources of necessary nutrients in many diets worldwide. Most fruit quality attributes emerge during ripening making the fruit more attractive to consumers. Understanding the molecular regulatory network underpinning fleshy fruit ripening is important not only for fruit quality improvement but also for postharvest shelf life. The phytohormone ethylene plays an essential role in climacteric fruit ripening and a number of studies have demonstrated that ethylene signaling components and related transcription factors are involved in the regulation of fruit ripening. However, the transcriptional network by which ethylene interacts with other signaling pathways to regulate the ripening process is not fully understood. In this review, focusing on the tomato as a reference species, the key points regarding the role of ethylene in coordinating the ripening process at the molecular and physiological levels are described. The interplay between ethylene and ripening‐related regulators and its crosstalk with other phytohormones and present recent data on ripening‐related epigenetic modifications are also discussed. Overall, the paper summarizes the most advanced research progress in this area to help facilitate its future development.

Influence of ethylene and ethephon treatments on the peel color and carotenoids of Gannan Newhall navel orange during postharvest storage

“…In recent years, numerous researches have shown that ethylene also plays a role in ripening and senescence process of non‐climacteric fruit, but the mechanism has not been clarified yet (Merzlyak, Gitelson, Chivkunova, & Rakitin, ; Nishikawa, Okabayashi, Mitiku, & Sawamura, ). Studies have demonstrated that low‐level endogenous ethylene participates in the regulation of citrus fruit mature aging process, especially in the change of citrus peel color (Liu, Jia, & Bai, ). Ethylene antagonist 2,5‐Norbornadiene and silver nitrate were used to inhibit the degradation of chlorophylls in citrus, which proved that endogenous ethylene participates in the process of peel color degreening (changing from green to yellow) (Goldschmidt, Huberman, & Goren, ).…”

Ethylene Sensor-Enabled Dynamic Monitoring and Multi-Strategies Control for Quality Management of Fruit Cold Chain Logistics

“…For example, for climacteric fruits, the ethylene content rises rapidly during the maturity stage, the respiration rate of the fruit also increases almost exponentially. Quality Layer : These physiological and metabolic activities of fruits directly affect the fruit quality, including firmness, SSC, pH, chromatic aberration, etc [ 23 ]. For example, the respiration of the fruit consumes the starch and converts it to fructose, thus resulting in a decrease of firmness and the increase of pH.…”

“…Quality Layer : These physiological and metabolic activities of fruits directly affect the fruit quality, including firmness, SSC, pH, chromatic aberration, etc [ 23 ]. For example, the respiration of the fruit consumes the starch and converts it to fructose, thus resulting in a decrease of firmness and the increase of pH.…”

Advances in application of genome editing in tomato and recent development of genome editing technology

“…Tomato is a typical climacteric fruit, and the phytohormone ethylene is critical for tomato fruit ripening (Liu et al 2020b ). There are abundant spontaneous mutants in tomato, and some of these mutants show significant ripening-deficient phenotypes (Giovannoni 2007 ).…”