Different postharvest strategies are commercially applied on fruit and vegetables (F&V) to adapt ripening processes to industry needs, such as to delay senescence, maintain fruit quality attributes, and prolong shelf-life. Controlled and modified atmosphere (CA/MA) technologies can successfully reduce or delay these detrimental processes reducing quality losses, increasing food safety, and consequently maximizing freshness and shelf life of produce.
F&V responses to modified O2 and CO2 levels involve both primary and secondary metabolism, but the specific tolerance levels largely vary by commodity, cultivar, storage temperature, and exposure duration. In particular, low O2 concentration leads to a reduction of respiration rate and ethylene synthesis which have a beneficial effect in terms of product shelf life extension by reducing, for instance, chlorophyll degradation, cell wall degradation, and phenolic oxidation. However, fermentation and off-flavors generation are potential negative downsides correlated to low O2 concentration.
The optimum commercial CA/MA storage regimes, which result in longer storage life for most F&V, are established mainly by using atmosphere concentrations that cover wide safety limits for O2 maximizing the benefits without incurring risk of anaerobic-related disorders. However, new F&V products often require more advanced, forceful and chancy strategies to maintain, or sometimes even improve, quality during storage, transport, and processing, such as the application of techniques like ultra-low oxygen (ULO) or dynamic controlled atmosphere (DCA). Due to the higher risk of adverse events related to these techniques, a specific tuning of these methodologies is necessary for each different type of product, tailoring the temperature and atmosphere composition in a cultivar-specific manner. Most of these modern treatments include i) short anaerobiosis shocks, ii) short term hypoxic conditions, and iii) long term hypoxic conditions. Despite the efficacy of these well-studied and established strategies, further investigations are of paramount importance to fully clarify the involved physiological and genetic processes, underlying O2 sensing mechanism and, specifically, the different degree of sensitivities of different F&V to hypoxic atmospheric conditions. This will aid the application of this array of techniques to emerging F&V varieties characterized by valuable quality traits, but low storability.
This Research Topic aims at collecting the most ground-breaking advances on recent scientific progress concerning the application of low oxygen storage on F&V specifically addressing the metabolic and molecular responses of fruit to hypoxic conditions. These studies should be supported by innovative, integrated and multidisciplinary approaches, such as fluxomics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, or sensomics. We welcome research articles, reviews, short notes, and opinion articles focused on:
• Novel postharvest approaches based on hypoxic atmospheric conditions
• Understanding, detection, and control of hypoxia-related disorders
• Identification of marker molecules for early detection of hypoxia-related disorders
• Effect of hypoxic atmospheric conditions of F&V organoleptic and nutritional quality
• New insights on genetic regulation of plant tissue oxygen sensing
• Characterization of molecular details involved in the regulation of low oxygen stress response
Please note: descriptive studies that report responses of F&V to different storage atmospheric conditions are not considered if they do not progress physiological and/or genetic understanding of these physiological responses.
Different postharvest strategies are commercially applied on fruit and vegetables (F&V) to adapt ripening processes to industry needs, such as to delay senescence, maintain fruit quality attributes, and prolong shelf-life. Controlled and modified atmosphere (CA/MA) technologies can successfully reduce or delay these detrimental processes reducing quality losses, increasing food safety, and consequently maximizing freshness and shelf life of produce.
F&V responses to modified O2 and CO2 levels involve both primary and secondary metabolism, but the specific tolerance levels largely vary by commodity, cultivar, storage temperature, and exposure duration. In particular, low O2 concentration leads to a reduction of respiration rate and ethylene synthesis which have a beneficial effect in terms of product shelf life extension by reducing, for instance, chlorophyll degradation, cell wall degradation, and phenolic oxidation. However, fermentation and off-flavors generation are potential negative downsides correlated to low O2 concentration.
The optimum commercial CA/MA storage regimes, which result in longer storage life for most F&V, are established mainly by using atmosphere concentrations that cover wide safety limits for O2 maximizing the benefits without incurring risk of anaerobic-related disorders. However, new F&V products often require more advanced, forceful and chancy strategies to maintain, or sometimes even improve, quality during storage, transport, and processing, such as the application of techniques like ultra-low oxygen (ULO) or dynamic controlled atmosphere (DCA). Due to the higher risk of adverse events related to these techniques, a specific tuning of these methodologies is necessary for each different type of product, tailoring the temperature and atmosphere composition in a cultivar-specific manner. Most of these modern treatments include i) short anaerobiosis shocks, ii) short term hypoxic conditions, and iii) long term hypoxic conditions. Despite the efficacy of these well-studied and established strategies, further investigations are of paramount importance to fully clarify the involved physiological and genetic processes, underlying O2 sensing mechanism and, specifically, the different degree of sensitivities of different F&V to hypoxic atmospheric conditions. This will aid the application of this array of techniques to emerging F&V varieties characterized by valuable quality traits, but low storability.
This Research Topic aims at collecting the most ground-breaking advances on recent scientific progress concerning the application of low oxygen storage on F&V specifically addressing the metabolic and molecular responses of fruit to hypoxic conditions. These studies should be supported by innovative, integrated and multidisciplinary approaches, such as fluxomics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, or sensomics. We welcome research articles, reviews, short notes, and opinion articles focused on:
• Novel postharvest approaches based on hypoxic atmospheric conditions
• Understanding, detection, and control of hypoxia-related disorders
• Identification of marker molecules for early detection of hypoxia-related disorders
• Effect of hypoxic atmospheric conditions of F&V organoleptic and nutritional quality
• New insights on genetic regulation of plant tissue oxygen sensing
• Characterization of molecular details involved in the regulation of low oxygen stress response
Please note: descriptive studies that report responses of F&V to different storage atmospheric conditions are not considered if they do not progress physiological and/or genetic understanding of these physiological responses.