CONTRIBUTION OF MEMBRANE LIPIDS? UNSATURATION TO ACQUISITION OF CHILLING-TOLERANCE IN TOMATO FRUITS

VALLE EM; BOGGIO SB; SOSSI ML

Rosario

Simposio; 2nd Latin American Metabolic Profiling Symposium; 2016

CONTRIBUTION OF MEMBRANE LIPIDS?UNSATURATION TO ACQUISITION OF CHILLING-TOLERANCE IN TOMATO FRUITSSossi ML1, Valle EM1,Boggio SB11Instituteof Molecular and Cellular Biology of Rosario (CONICET-UNR), Ocampo210 bis, 2000 Rosario, Argentina.e-mail:sossi@ibr-conicet.gov.arKeywords: Unsaturated lipids, chilling injury,tomato.Chilling injury is a physiologicaldisturbance that causes significant losses of fruits and vegetables during thepostharvest refrigerated storage. Although this practice is commonly used toextend the tomato fruit commercialization period [1], it could produce theundesirable appearance of chilling symptoms, depending on the tomato variety.Tomato cv. ?Micro-Tom? fruit is tolerant to chilling in contrast with tomatocv. ?Minitomato? fruit [2]. To understand the mechanisms of generation of chillinginjury and its influence on the tomato fruit quality, it was analyzed theeffect of low-temperature storage on the lipidome of tomato fruit from the twocontrasting varieties.Fruits were harvested at the maturegreen stage, refrigerated for four weeks at 4ºC and then transferred during n days to a shelf in the growingcabinet. The pericarp tissue was processed for lipid extraction and the lipidcomposition was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).The tolerance of Micro-Tom fruit topostharvest chilling injury was associated with an increase of lipidscontaining linolenic acid after cold storage concomitantly with a decrease inlipids containing saturated, mono- and diunsaturated acids. Unsaturation degreeof fruit lipids returned to its initial values once Micro-Tom fruits were returned from growing-temperature. These changesoccurred mainly in galactolipids and were not observed in the Minitomato fruit.The increase of linolenic acid observedduring cold storage of fruit, and the subsequent decline when transferred toroom temperature may be related to an adjustment of fluidity of the fruit membrane.This membrane lipid remodeling of the fruit could help to maintain the fruit integritywhen they are stored at low temperature. REFERENCES1.    Kader A.A., HortScience, 2003, 38: 1004-1008.2.    Gonzalez C.; RéM.D.; SossiM.L.; Valle E.M. and Boggio S.B., ScientiaHorticulturae,  2015, 184:63-69. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSCONICET, ANCYPT