The fruit ripening process has been viewed over the last decades as being
successively of physiological, biochemical, and molecular nature. Fruit ripening
is accompanied by a number of biochemical events, including changes in color,
sugar, acidity, texture, and aroma volatiles that are crucial for the sensory quality
(Fig. 16.1). At the late stages of ripening, some senescence-related physiological
changes occur that lead to membrane deterioration and cell death. In that regard,
fruit ripening can thus be considered as the first step of a programmed cell death
process. All biochemical and physiological changes that take place during fruit
ripening are driven by the coordinated expression of fruit ripening-related genes.
These genes encode enzymes that participate directly in biochemical and physiological
changes. They also encode regulatory proteins that participate in the signaling
pathways, and in the transcriptional machinery that regulate gene expression
and set in motion the ripening developmental progra
