Effect of postharvest application of jasmonic acid on shelf-life quality of strawberries

Abstract

Strawberry fruit has a short postharvest life which limits greatly marketability and commercial value. Jasmonic acid has an important effect on the extension of fruit postharvest life. In order to reveal the regulatory mechanism of MeJA on strawberry postharvest life, we analyzed the physiological changes and transcriptomic profile that occurred after MeJA (10 μΜ) treatment. We showed that MeJA can increase the shelf-life of strawberries, it can increase the antioxidant enzymes SOD, POD, CAT, APX, and increase the free radical scavenging rate of DPPH and reduce the MDA content. It also delays fruit softening and increases sugar content. RNA-Seq was performed to analyze transcriptome changes of MeJA-treated strawberries: it is generated 6 GB of data and obtained 21, 725 differentially expressed genes, out of which 10, 567 genes were up-regulated and 11, 158 genes were down-regulated. 4, 957 GO annotations and 116 KEGG annotations were also obtained. In ad- dition, wefoundthatalargenumberofDEGsrelat- ed to cell wall softening, anthocyanin biosynthesis, fiavonoid biosynthesis, sugar metabolism, and plant hormone signaling enriched in treated samples. Collectively, this study elucidated the molecular mechanism of jasmonic acid extending the shelf-life of strawberry fruit, identified multiple DEGs that responded to jasmonic acid during post-harvest, providing a wealth of data resources that can further enhance our understanding of the various molecular mechanisms of strawberry regulated by jasmonic acid.