Polyamines as an ecofriendly postharvest tool to maintain fruit quality

Abstract

Polyamines (PAs) are natural compounds involved in a wide range of plant growth and developmental process, such as cell division, dormancy breaking, germination, development of flower buds, fruit set, growth and ripening, as well as in plant responses to environmental stresses including chilling injury. This chapter will focus on the role of PAs in fruit growth and ripening, with special emphasis on the effects of pre- and postharvest PA treatment on fruit quality attributes, bioactive constituents with antioxidant activity, and tolerance of fruit to chilling injury damage. The results of this chapter provide evidence for the numerous beneficial effects of the exogenous PA treatments, both at pre- and postharvest time in fruit quality attributes including their concentration in antioxidant compounds. Taking into account that PAs are naturally occurring molecules their application as pre- or postharvest treatment could be considered as an environmentally compatible tool as they can be metabolized by fruit cells. In addition, it should be pointed out that although exogenous application of PAs enhances their endogenous levels, the concentrations remain far lower than the toxic ones. Since modern agriculture is searching for effective biological molecules with well-known metabolic effects but without toxicological effects, a possible answer may be related to PA treatments.