Role of gum Arabic combined with cinnamic acid coating on quality and cell wall degradation enzymes of mango fruits at low temperature

Abstract

Mango exhibits a short shelf life when kept under ambient conditions. Therefore, this study was carried out to assess the synergistic effect of gum Arabic (GA) and cinnamic acid (CA) coatings on mango fruits stored for 28 days at 12 ± 1 °C. The treatments included GA 10 and 20 % sole and its formulation with CA 0.2 % while the uncoated fruits were used as control. The results revealed that GA + CA coatings exhibited reduced weight loss, flesh firmness, delayed respiratory peak, retained soluble solids content (SSC), titratable acidity (TA) and skin colour, retarded spoilage, and decreased electrolyte leakage of fruit as compared to uncoated fruit during storage. Among all, the coating GA 20 % + CA 0.2 % maintained higher firmness (16.6 N), SSC (20.1 %), TA (0.71 %), total flavonoid content (152 mg/kg) and total carotenoids content (45.1 mg/kg) and retained the higher sensory quality of mango fruit at the end of storage. Additionally, the GA 20 % + CA 0.2 % coating suppressed activities of polygalacturonase (PG), cellulase (CL) and pectin methyl esterase (PME) in stored mango fruits.

Keywords: Cell wall degrading enzymes; Cinnamic acid; Fruit quality; Gum Arabic; Mango; Storage.