Abstract
Fruit firmness is a key factor affecting the storage and transportation of strawberries. In this study, the high-hardness variety ‘Dongyang Hong 5’ and the main cultivated variety ‘Xiangye’ were used as materials to analyze the dynamic changes of fruit firmness, cell wall substances (protopectin, hemicellulose, etc.) and related degradation enzymes (PG, CX, β-Gal, etc.) at five developmental stages (S1-S5). The results showed that the firmness of ‘Dongyang Hong 5’ decreased at a slower rate with fruit ripening, and its firmness at each stage was higher than that of ‘Xiangye’. The content of protopectin and hemicellulose in ‘Dongyang Hong 5’ was generally higher. Correlation analysis indicated that the firmness of both varieties was significantly positively correlated with the content of protopectin and significantly negatively correlated with the content of soluble pectin and cellulase (CX) activity. Enzyme activity analysis showed that the trends of polygalacturonase (PG), CX, β-galactosidase (β-Gal), pectin lyase (PL), amylase (AM), and pectin methylesterase (PME) activities in both varieties were basically the same, but there were differences in activity levels. Among them, the role of CX was more significant, indicating that CX is a key enzyme in regulating strawberry softening.
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