Comparative Study on Pre‐Cut and Post‐Cut Ethylene Treatments to Control the Browning of Fresh‐Cut Apples

ABSTRACT Browning is one of the main problems in the processing and storage of fresh‐cut apples. In this work, pre‐cut and post‐cut ethylene treatment (800 mg L −1 ) was carried out at room temperature to investigate their effects on the browning of fresh‐cut apples. The results showed that pre‐cut ethylene treatment for 15 min significantly inhibited browning of fresh‐cut apples, delayed the increase of PPO activity and down‐regulated the expression of MdPPO6 and MdPPO10 during storage. The PPO activity in the pre‐cut group was only 32.67% of the control group after 2 h of storage. Moreover, pre‐cut ethylene also improved CAT, APX, and GR activity, up‐regulated the expression of MdCAT6 , MdAPX6 , and MdERF17 , and increased the content of chlorogenic acid, epicatechin, and catechin in fresh‐cut apples. In contrast, post‐cut ethylene treatment increased the browning and PPO activity and up‐regulated the expression of MdPPO6 and MdERF17 , but inhibited APX and GR activity. The correlation analysis showed that browning index (BI) in the pre‐cut ethylene group was positively correlated with PPO activity and negatively correlated with phenolics in the early storage period. The results showed that pre‐cut ethylene treatment was an effective method to control the browning of fresh‐cut apples during short‐term storage.