Study of inhibition of germination of potato by ethylene

Etienne Dako; Christopher K Jankowski; Yves-Marie Gnimassou; Diane Lebeau

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06175

Study of inhibition of germination of potato by ethylene

Heliyon. 2021 Feb 6;7(2):e06175. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06175. eCollection 2021 Feb.

Authors

Etienne Dako¹, Christopher K Jankowski^{1

2}, Yves-Marie Gnimassou¹, Diane Lebeau²

Affiliations

¹ Ecole des Sciences des Aliments, de Nutrition et d'études Familiales, Faculté des sciences de la santé et des services communautaires, Université de Moncton, Moncton, NB, E1A 3E9, Canada.
² CEN, Centre d'études Nucléaires de Saclay, DEN, LRMO, bat 391, BP 91191 Gif-sur Yvette, France.

Abstract

In Canada, the potato (Solanum tuberosum) is by far the most cultivated vegetable and plays a major nutritional role. However, during storage, the potato can easily undergo germination. In this study we have shown the inhibition potential of ethylene as an anti-germinative agent acting especially on phenols. In both varieties assayed (Yukon Gold and Russet Burbank) in this study, the ethylene treatment led to a decrease in total phenol concentration of about 20%. The analysis of potato extracts showed the decrease of specific phenol concentrations which was dependant on the time and temperature of extraction. Our hypothese that the transformation of phenols into phenolic ethyl ethers via possible radical mechanism were then formulated and confirmed by LC and LC/MS.

Keywords: Ethylenization of potato extracts; Inhibition of germination in potatoes (Solanum); Phenolic acids from Yukon Gold and Russet Burbank potatoes.