Organic acid metabolism during ripening of fruits.
Satyan S. H., Patwardhan M. V.
Author Affiliation: Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore 570 013, India.
Indian Journal of Biochemistry and Biophysics 20 : 311-314
Abstract : The pulp of freshly harvested mangoes (cv. Badami), apples (cv. Red Delicious), bananas (cv. Dwarf Cavendish) and mandarins (cv. Coorg) was injected with either 14C-labelled malic, citric, succinic or aspartic acid in mannitol. During ripening in storage, the amount of label incorporated into CO2 in apples and mandarins increased, whereas in mangoes and bananas this decreased. Mangoes converted organic acids mainly into sugars during ripening. On injection into mandarins much of the organic acid label was incorporated into sugars which decreased only slightly with ripening. Utilization of organic acids decreased in ripening bananas. This was indicated by a marked increase in the proportion of labelled organic acids during storage.