Reduced chilling injury in cucumber by nitric oxide and the antioxidant response

Huqing Yang; Fenghua Wu; Jiyu Cheng

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2011.02.011

Reduced chilling injury in cucumber by nitric oxide and the antioxidant response

Food Chem. 2011 Aug 1;127(3):1237-42. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2011.02.011. Epub 2011 Feb 22.

Authors

Huqing Yang¹, Fenghua Wu², Jiyu Cheng²

Affiliations

¹ School of Agriculture and Food Science, ZHEJIANG A & F UNIVERSITY, Lin'an, Zhejiang 311300, PR China. Electronic address: yanghuqing@sohu.com.
² School of Agriculture and Food Science, ZHEJIANG A & F UNIVERSITY, Lin'an, Zhejiang 311300, PR China.

PMID: 25214120
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2011.02.011

Abstract

Cucumber fruit were pre-treated with 25μll(-1) nitric oxide (NO) for 12h at 20°C, and then stored at 2±1°C and 95% relative humidity for 15days. Chilling injury index, membrane permeability, lipid peroxidation, superoxide anion (O2(-)) production rate, H2O2 content, activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), peroxidase (POD), and DPPH-radical scavenging activity were measured. The results showed that the application of NO at 25μll(-1) was most effective in reducing CI in cucumber fruit. The treatment reduced the increases in membrane permeability and lipid peroxidation, delayed the increases in both O2(-) production rate and H2O2 content. The NO-treated fruit exhibited significantly higher activities of SOD, CAT, APX and POD and higher DPPH-radical scavenging activity than control fruit during the storage. The overall results suggest that NO enhanced chilling tolerance in cucumber fruit by improving the antioxidative defence system.

Keywords: Antioxidant enzyme; Chilling injury; Cucumber; Nitric oxide; Oxidative stress.