Differences in Lipid Metabolism, Polar Metabolites, and Phenolics in Persea americana under Two Storage Conditions

Abstract

Harvested avocado fruits can be potentially exposed both to pre- and post-harvest factors that may influence the susceptibility of fruit to quality loss. Regular air (RA) storage consists of approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.3% carbon dioxide, and smaller amounts of some other gasses. A controlled atmosphere (CA) is a changed atmosphere that is used to delay respiration and reduce fungal and physiological deterioration, and it is an appropriate and practical technology for prolonging the shelf life and maintaining the quality of fruits on a large scale. An experiment was conducted by collecting fruits from two different avocado orchards (Bartolillo and Quilhuica) during two harvest seasons based on dry matter content and two subsequent years. The current study was designed to investigate the changes in polar metabolites, phenolic compounds, and fatty acids in the skin of Hass avocados stored under two distinct conditions. Bartolillo orchard fruits were mostly correlated to linoleic and oleic acid as important variables. For Quilhuica, fruits were mostly correlated with palmitoleic, palmitic, and oleic acids. Phenolic content increased at the beginning of storage and decreased at the end of storage for one orchard and contrarily for others, indicating that the result was dependent on the orchard and storage condition. Serine, glutaric acid, xylitol and D-mannitol were the polar metabolites that most correlated with fruits of the Quilhuica orchard while ß-sitosterol and gluconic were related to fruits of the Bartolillo orchard. The differences in fatty acids, polar metabolites and phenolics were dependent on orchard and storage conditions.