CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Nowadays, the application of non-thermal technologies for the preservation of fruit and vegetable products is becoming increasingly common. In turn, new trends point to the application of these technologies to generate a certain level of stress to the plant product, able to induce the synthesis of compounds of interest and to facilitate their extraction from the tissues. The aim of this work was to study the effect of High Pressure Processing (HPP) on the bioactive compounds content of minimally processed peaches, and its possible relation with the changes in the tissue microstructure. Cylinders of peaches cv. Romea were processed by combining a dipping pre-treatment in organic acids solution, with vacuum-packing and different HPP conditions at room temperature according to a factorial design of two factors: level of pressure (500-600-700MPa) and holding time (1-5min). The content of total phenols by the Folin-Ciocalteau method and ascorbic acid by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) were measured in pressurized samples. The ascorbic acid and total phenols contents were both significantly increased, with the magnitude of this rise being higher for the treatments with higher levels of pressure (600 and 700MPa). On the other hand, the comparison of the microstructure of peaches subjected at 600MPa for 5min with tissues of fresh peaches, by means of optical and electronic transmission microscopy, suggests that the structural changes caused by HPP could improve the release of cytoplasmic content into the extracellular spaces, thus increasing the extractability of some compounds. Therefore, this study provides a strong evidence that the increase in the content of total phenols and ascorbic acid of minimally processed peaches (cv. Romea) treated by HPP is related not only to the induction of the synthesis of these compounds because of the stress but also to the effect of the HPP on the microstructure of the product.

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