Banana is a climacteric fruit with desirable palatability and high nutritional value. It ripens rapidly accompanied with metabolite changes during postharvest storage. In this work, morin was applied to treat banana to delay senescence. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to monitor the changes of metabolite composition and levels in banana. The results showed that morin significantly delayed the changes of color and firmness. 1D and 2D NMR spectra reflected that the levels and composition of metabolites were changed with the senescence initiation. The principal component analysis revealed that the first principal components responsible for banana senescence were carbohydrates, amino acids, lipids and phenolics. Morin treatment delayed the transformation of starch to glucose, fructose and sucrose, accelerated the accumulations of alanine and γ-Amino-butyrate (GABA), postponed the generations of valine and l-aspartic acid, suppressed the degradation of saponin a. It indicated that morin was effective in delaying banana senescence.
Keywords: banana; metabolite; morin; nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR); senescence.