Freshly consumed peaches ( Prunus persica L. Batsch) can cause allergic reactions in the worldwide population because of the presence of four classes of allergens (Pru p 1, Pru p 2, Pru p 3, and Pru p 4). Fruit bagging has been widely practiced in peach cultivation to improve fruit quality; however, its effect on the expression of peach allergen-encoding genes remains unknown. In this study, the influence of fruit bagging with opaque paper bags on the major peach allergen-encoding genes, including Pru p 1.01, Pru p 1.06B, Pru p 2.01B, Pru p 2.02, Pru p 3.01, Pru p 4.01, and Pru p 4.02, were measured by means of real-time PCR. A significant reduction in transcript accumulation was observed for all of the selected genes in the epicarps of the bagged peach fruits, whereas slight increases were observed in the mesocarps for these genes, with the two exceptions of Pru p 2.02 and Pru p 3.01. For most of these genes, much higher transcripts were determined in the epicarps than in the mesocarps. Taken together, a significant reduction in the transcription rate of the allergen-encoding genes in the whole peach fruit was achieved by shading with opaque paper bags. According to these data, modifications in growing practices of peach may help to obtain fruits with lower levels of allergens and thus contribute to reducing potential allergenic risks in consumers.
Keywords: allergen; fruit bagging; gene expression; peach; real-time PCR.