This paper aims at giving an overview of the progress made during the last
decades on the mechanisms of fruit ripening and to present the most recent trends
and prospects for the future. Important steps forward will be presented (respiratory
climacteric, ethylene biosynthesis and action, isolation of genes involved in the
ripening process, biotechnological control of fruit ripening....) by showing how the
judicious exploitation of the data published previously, the strategies, methodologies
and plant material adopted have been crucial for the advancement of knowledge.
Opportunities of co-operation between geneticists and post-harvest physiologists as
well as new possibilities offered by genomics, proteomics and metabolomics for the
understanding of the fruit ripening process and the development of sensory quality
will be developed
