Effect of irrigation and fertilisation on the biologically active components of tomato

Abstract A three-year (2016–2018) open field experiment was conducted to study the effect of irrigation, fertilisation, and seasonal variation on the main bioactive components, such as carotenoids (lycopene and β-carotene), total polyphenols, antioxidant capacity, and tocopherols of processed Uno Rosso F1 tomato. The statistical evaluation of measurements proved that the multi-year data set cannot be evaluated as combined data set; the values obtained in different years must be evaluated separately. The impact of irrigation on the content of bioactive components varied from year to year. The correlation was negative between irrigation and α-tocopherol content in 2016 and 2018 (r = –0.567 and –0.605, respectively), polyphenol content in 2016 (r = –0.668), γ-tocopherol content in 2017 (r = –0.662), while positive correlation was observed between concentration of vitamin C (r = 0.533) in 2017, lycopene content (r = 0.473) in 2018 and irrigation intensity. A weak correlation was proved between K levels and concentrations of lycopene and polyphenols in 2016 (r = 0.301 and r = 0.392, respectively)

Investigation of allergen proteins in five tomato cultivars

Investigation of putative allergens from tomato berries is challenging as differences between human serum IgE specificity and reactivity as well as the non-specific binding of the primary and secondary antibodies often cause difficulties. In this study five tomato cultivars were investigated to evaluate their potential allergenicity in Hungarian tomato sensitive patients. The major allergens proved to be low molecular weight proteins, but several previously described allergens could be identified as well using IgE-Western blotting. IgE binding to cross-reactive carbohydrate determinants (CCDs) was ruled out through the use of CCD inhibitor, but non-specific binding of the secondary antibody remained an issue. IgE binding activity of a purified, immunoblot positive protein (band at 40 kDa), and non-specific binding of the secondary antibody to the same protein, was demonstrated with an Optical Waveguide Lightmode Spectroscopy (OWLS) based immunosensor. LC-ESI-MS/MS analysis showed this protein is an as-yet undescribed vicilin-type putative allergen