Prediction of ‘Nules Clementine’ mandarin susceptibility to rind breakdown disorder using Vis/NIR spectroscopy

The use of diffuse reflectance visible and near infrared (Vis/NIR) spectroscopy was explored as a non-destructive technique to predict ‘Nules Clementine’ mandarin fruit susceptibility to rind breakdown (RBD) disorder by detecting rind physico-chemical properties of 80 intact fruit harvested from different canopy positions. Vis/NIR spectra were obtained using a LabSpec® spectrophotometer. Reference physico-chemical data of the fruit were obtained after 8 weeks of storage at 8 °C using conventional methods and included RBD, hue angle, colour index, mass loss, rind dry matter, as well as carbohydrates (sucrose, glucose, fructose, total carbohydrates), and total phenolic acid concentrations. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to analyse spectral data to identify clusters in the PCA score plots and outliers. Partial least squares (PLS) regression was applied to spectral data after PCA to develop prediction models for each quality attribute. The spectra were subjected to a test set validation by dividing the data into calibration (n = 48) and test validation (n = 32) sets. An extra set of 40 fruit harvested from a different part of the orchard was used for external validation. PLS-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models were developed to sort fruit based on canopy position and RBD susceptibility. Fruit position within the canopy had a significant influence on rind biochemical properties. Outside fruit had higher rind carbohydrates, phenolic acids and dry matter content and lower RBD index than inside fruit. The data distribution in the PCA and PLS-DA models displayed four clusters that could easily be identified. These clusters allowed distinction between fruit from different preharvest treatments. NIR calibration and validation results demonstrated that colour index, dry matter, total carbohydrates and mass loss were predicted with significant accuracy, with residual predictive deviation (RPD) for prediction of 3.83, 3.58, 3.15 and 2.61, respectively. The good correlation between spectral information and carbohydrate content demonstrated the potential of Vis/NIR as a non-destructive tool to predict fruit susceptibility to RBD

Micromechanical behaviour of apple tissue in tensile and compression tests: Storage conditions and cultivar effect

The micromechanical behaviour of apple tissue was studied using a miniature tensile stage positioned underneath a microscope that allowed for simultaneous acquisition of force-displacement curves while the deformation of the individual cells was followed and recorded. Tensile and compression tests were performed on small samples of apple parenchyma of two different cultivars (Jonagored and Braeburn) and two storage conditions (control and shelf-life). Tests on the repeatability of the methods has provided satisfactory results and will allow the reduction of samples in further experiments. Under tensile loading, no differences for any of the mechanical parameters were found between cultivars, while a significant storage effect was observed for both cultivars. This opens the possibility of developing new sensors for quality assessment. Differences were found when studying the relationship of mechanical properties at the micro- and macro-level, which requires further investigation. The insights gained in this research will be useful when developing mathematical models based upon the mechanical behaviour of apple tissue

Tissue specific analysis reveals a differential organization and regulation of both ethylene biosynthesis and E8 during climacteric ripening of tomato

Background: Solanum lycopersicum or tomato is extensively studied with respect to the ethylene metabolism during climacteric ripening, focusing almost exclusively on fruit pericarp. In this work the ethylene biosynthesis pathway was examined in all major tomato fruit tissues: pericarp, septa, columella, placenta, locular gel and seeds. The tissue specific ethylene production rate was measured throughout fruit development, climacteric ripening and postharvest storage. All ethylene intermediate metabolites (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC), malonyl-ACC (MACC) and S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM)) and enzyme activities (ACC-oxidase (ACO) and ACC-synthase (ACS)) were assessed. Results: All tissues showed a similar climacteric pattern in ethylene productions, but with a different amplitude. Profound differences were found between tissue types at the metabolic and enzymatic level. The pericarp tissue produced the highest amount of ethylene, but showed only a low ACC content and limited ACS activity, while the locular gel accumulated a lot of ACC, MACC and SAM and showed only limited ACO and ACS activity. Central tissues (septa, columella and placenta) showed a strong accumulation of ACC and MACC. These differences indicate that the ethylene biosynthesis pathway is organized and regulated in a tissue specific way. The possible role of inter- and intra-tissue transport is discussed to explain these discrepancies. Furthermore, the antagonistic relation between ACO and E8, an ethylene biosynthesis inhibiting protein, was shown to be tissue specific and developmentally regulated. In addition, ethylene inhibition by E8 is not achieved by a direct interaction between ACO and E8, as previously suggested in literature. Conclusions: The Ethylene biosynthesis pathway and E8 show a tissue specific and developmental differentiation throughout tomato fruit development and ripening

Cutting Edge Technologies in Postharvest Research: Journey to the Centre of the Fruit

Food microstructure is at the base of many food quality roperties. The EU project InsideFood focuses on the pplication of high technological techniques to inspect internal quality of fruit. Tomographic techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, X-ray computed tomography, optical coherence tomography and confocal microscopy can be used to obtain information about the 3-D microstructure of the fruit which is believed to affect quality attributes such as texture. Optical techniques such as spatially or time resolved reflectance spectroscopy may also be used to obtain information about fruit microstructure. This microstructural information can be incorporated in multiscale simulation models to predict the cellular gas concentrations in fruit. Such models aid towards a better understanding of, for instance, controlled atmosphere storage of apple and postharvest behaviour of fruits and vegetables in general

Oncogenic PIK3CA induces centrosome amplification and tolerance to genome doubling

Mutations in PIK3CA are very frequent in cancer and lead to sustained PI3K pathway activation. The impact of acute expression of mutant PIK3CA during early stages of malignancy is unknown. Using a mouse model to activate the Pik3ca H1047R hotspot mutation in the heterozygous state from its endogenous locus, we here report that mutant Pik3ca induces centrosome amplification in cultured cells (through a pathway involving AKT, ROCK and CDK2/Cyclin E-nucleophosmin) and in mouse tissues, and increased in vitro cellular tolerance to spontaneous genome doubling. We also present evidence that the majority of PIK3CA H1047R mutations in the TCGA breast cancer cohort precede genome doubling. These previously unappreciated roles of PIK3CA mutation show that PI3K signalling can contribute to the generation of irreversible genomic changes in cancer. While this can limit the impact of PI3K-targeted therapies, these findings also open the opportunity for therapeutic approaches aimed at limiting tumour heterogeneity and evolution

Boundary quantum Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations and Bethe vectors

Solutions to boundary quantum Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations are constructed as bilateral sums involving "off-shell" Bethe vectors in case the reflection matrix is diagonal and only the 2-dimensional representation of $U_q(\hat{\frak{sl}(2)})$ is involved. We also consider their rational and classical degenerations