Metabolite Profiling Reveals the Effect of Cold Storage on Primary Metabolism in Nectarine Varieties with Contrasting Mealiness

Chilling injury is a physiological disorder caused by cold storage in peaches and nectarines. The main symptom of chilling injury is mealiness/wooliness, described as a lack of juice in fruit flesh. In this work, we studied two nectarine varieties (Andes Nec-2 and Andes Nec-3) with contrasting susceptibility to mealiness after cold storage. A non-targeted metabolomic analysis was conducted by GC-MS to understand if changes in metabolite abundance are associated with nectarine mealiness induced by cold storage. Multivariate analyses indicated that in unripe nectarines, cold storage promoted a higher accumulation of amino acids in both varieties. Interestingly, for ripe nectarines, cold storage induced an accumulation of fewer amino acids in both varieties and showed an increased abundance of sugars and organic acids. A pathway reconstruction of primary metabolism revealed that in ripe nectarines, cold storage disrupted metabolite abundance in sugar metabolism and the TCA cycle, leading to a differential accumulation of amino acids, organic acids, and sugars in mealy and juicy nectarines.

Automated summary

This study compared the changes in metabolite abundance in two nectarine varieties (Andes Nec-2 and Andes Nec-3) with different susceptibility to mealiness during cold storage using GC-MS analysis. The results showed that in unripe nectarines, cold storage led to an increase in the accumulation of amino acids, whereas in ripe nectarines, it resulted in a decrease in amino acid accumulation and an increase in the abundance of sugars and organic acids. Pathway reconstruction revealed that cold storage disrupted metabolite abundance in sugar metabolism and the TCA cycle in ripe nectarines, leading to differential accumulation of amino acids, organic acids, and sugars in mealy and juicy nectarines.