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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Wenatchee, Washington » Physiology and Pathology of Tree Fruits Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #303570
Title: A metabolic profile for ‘Honeycrisp’ apple soggy breakdown, a chilling induced physiological disorder

Author
item Leisso, Rachel
item HANRAHAN, INES - Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission
item Buchanan, David
item Lee, Jinwook
item Rudell, David
item Mattheis, James
item WATKINS, CHRIS - Cornell University

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/25/2014
Publication Date: 6/2/2014
Citation: Leisso, R.S., Hanrahan, I., Buchanan, D.A., Lee, J., Rudell Jr, D.R., Mattheis, J.P., Watkins, C. 2014. A metabolic profile for ‘Honeycrisp’ apple soggy breakdown, a chilling induced physiological disorder. Meeting Abstract. ISHS Postharvest Unlimited V Book of Abstracts, page 81.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: ‘Honeycrisp’ is an economically important apple cultivar increasing rapidly in planted acreage in many apple growing regions. Long-term cold storage can enhance value by enabling a longer window of availability, but the cultivar is highly susceptible to chilling induced disorders. Soggy breakdown is a chilling injury characterized by sharply demarcated ribbons of dark brown tissue in the fruit cortex. The disorder often appears within several weeks of harvest in cold stored fruit, but incidence is highly variable among orchards. As with many other apple fruit physiological disorders, soggy breakdown symptom development lags several weeks between the initial events provoking the disorder early in storage and appearance of symptoms weeks later. Diagnostic protocols currently rely on visual symptom assessment. A step towards creating objective forensic tools that distinguish soggy breakdown from disorders with similar appearance is constructing a metabolic fingerprint specific to this disorder. GC-MS and LC-MS were used to establish the untargeted metabolic profiles of fruit from three orchards in Washington State, USA stored at a temperature (0.5 oC) favoring soggy breakdown development. Levels of a broad range of volatile, non-volatile polar and non-polar metabolites were evaluated using mass spectral libraries made specifically for apple fruit. Identified compounds include both primary and secondary metabolites that are components of fruit quality including flesh color and flavor as well as cellular function and integrity. Multivariate modeling established distinct metabolic fingerprints for symptomatic and healthy tissue. This putative diagnostic metabolic profile is a step towards the goal of determining predictive biomarkers for soggy breakdown.