Exogenous 24-epibrassinolide alleviates chilling injury in peach fruit through modulating PpGATA12-mediated sucrose and energy metabolisms

24-Epibrassinolide (EBR) may act as a modulator for chilling injury in peach fruit during cold storage. In this study, we screened a EBR-induced GATA-type zinc finger protein PpGATA12. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential roles of EBR treatment and transcriptional regulation of PpGATA12 in regulating chilling resistance of peaches. In the current study, we found that EBR treatment promoted the activities and transcriptions of energy and sucrose metabolism-related enzymes, maintained higher ATP content and energy status, improved the accumulation of sucrose and hexose. Furthermore, molecular biology assays suggested that PpGATA12 up-regulated transcriptions of sucrose metabolism-related genes including PpSS and PpNI, and energy metabolism-related genes including PpCCO, PpSDH and PpH+-ATPase. These results provided a new insight that the enhancement of chilling resistance in peach fruit by EBR treatment might be closely related to the regulatory role of PpGATA12 on sucrose and energy metabolisms.