Comparison of fruit morphology and nutrition metabolism in different cultivars of kiwifruit across developmental stages

Yu-Fei Li; Weijia Jiang; Chunhong Liu; Yuqi Fu; Ziyuan Wang; Mingyuan Wang; Cun Chen; Li Guo; Qi-Guo Zhuang; Zhi-Bin Liu

doi:10.7717/peerj.11538

Comparison of fruit morphology and nutrition metabolism in different cultivars of kiwifruit across developmental stages

PeerJ. 2021 Jun 23:9:e11538. doi: 10.7717/peerj.11538. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Yu-Fei Li^#¹, Weijia Jiang^#², Chunhong Liu¹, Yuqi Fu¹, Ziyuan Wang¹, Mingyuan Wang¹, Cun Chen³, Li Guo³, Qi-Guo Zhuang⁴, Zhi-Bin Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Sichuan University, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resources and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Chengdu, China.
² West China Medical Publishers, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
³ College of Chemistry and Life Sciences, Sichuan Provincial Key Laboratory for Development and Utilization of Characteristic Horticultural Biological Resources, Chengdu Normal University, Chengdu, China.
⁴ Kiwifruit Breeding and Utilization Key Laboratory, Sichuan Provincial Academy of Natural Resource Sciences, Chengdu, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Kiwifruit (Actinidia) is becoming increasingly popular worldwide due to its favorable flavour and high vitamin C content. However, quality parameters vary among cultivars. To determine the differences in quality and metabolic parameters of kiwifruit, we monitored the growth processes of 'Kuilv' (Actinidia arguta), 'Hongyang' (Actinidia chinensis) and 'Hayward' (Actinidia deliciosa). We found that 'Kuilv' required the shortest time for fruit development, while 'Hayward' needed the longest time to mature. The fruit size of 'Hayward' was the largest and that of 'Kuilv' was the smallest. Furthermore, 'Hongyang' showed a double-S shape of dry matter accumulation, whereas 'Kuilv' and 'Hayward' showed a linear or single-S shape pattern of dry matter accumulation during development. The three cultivars demonstrated the same trend for total soluble solids accumulation, which did not rise rapidly until 90-120 days after anthesis. However, the accumulation of organic acids and soluble sugars varied among the cultivars. During later fruit development, the content of glucose, fructose and quinic acid in 'Kuilv' fruit was far lower than that in 'Hongyang' and 'Hayward'. On the contrary, 'Kuilv' had the highest sucrose content among the three cultivars. At maturity, the antioxidative enzymatic systems were significantly different among the three kiwifruit cultivars. 'Hongyang' showed higher activities of superoxide dismutase than the other cultivars, while the catalase content of 'Hayward' was significantly higher than that of 'Hongyang' and 'Kuilv'. These results provided knowledge that could be implemented for the marketing, handling and post-harvest technologies of the different kiwifruit cultivars.

Keywords: Antioxidant enzyme system; Carbohydrate metabolism; Development process; Fruit composition; Kiwifruit; Organic acid.

Grants and funding

The research was funded by the Key Research and Development Program of Science & Technology Department of Sichuan Province (No. 2021YFN0119), Sichuan Science and Technology Program (No. 2018NZ0044 & No. 2020YFH0014), and Sichuan College Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship training Project (No. S201914389110). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.