Volatilome and aroma appreciation of ready to eat strawberry fruit with altered "alcohol acyltransferase" gene expression during postharvest storage

Baldwin, A., Müller, C.T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0455-7132, Christofides, S.R., Fairchild, R., Setarehnejad, A., Nuetzmann, H.W., Spadafora, N.D. and Rogers, H.J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3830-5857 2025. Volatilome and aroma appreciation of ready to eat strawberry fruit with altered "alcohol acyltransferase" gene expression during postharvest storage. Acta Horticulturae 1442 , pp. 27-34. 10.17660/ActaHortic.2025.1442.4

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Abstract

Strawberries are a desirable component of fresh fruit salads. They are known to be highly perishable and are therefore stored at low temperature to prolong their shelf-life. Chilled storage, however, impacts biochemical and physiological processes in the fruit, affecting consumer appreciation and causing food waste. Aroma is an essential characteristic of strawberries and is known to change due to chilled storage. Aroma profiles also differ across different strawberry cultivars. We assessed changes in volatile organic compound (VOC) profiles of halved and cold stored fruit of three Fragraria × ananassa cultivars: ‘Elsanta’, ‘Favouri’, and ‘Malling Centenary’. ‘Favouri’ produced the most complex aroma with a total of 132 VOCs identified. The ‘Favouri’ VOC profile was also least affected by storage, while the most affected was ‘Elsanta’. A recent transcriptomic study showed that chilled storage changed expression of a large number of genes. We developed a transient gene expression method for postharvest strawberries to overexpress genes relevant to VOC biosynthesis, aimed at understanding better the molecular mechanisms behind VOC changes during chilled storage. We tested the method by transiently transforming three different cultivars storage with the fluorescent protein marker mCherry. After demonstrating that the marker was successfully expressed even after several days of storage, we then tested the effects of expression of alcohol acyltransferase (AAT). The gene is involved in ester production, an important VOC family in strawberry aroma and overexpression of AAT was assessed after postharvest storage by recording VOC profiles of the fruits. We show that overexpression of AAT can modulate VOC profiles after storage and that this can be perceived by consumers. We anticipate that our approach will help to identify useful markers for breeding strawberry fruit with better retention of aroma during postharvest storage, of clear benefit to the fresh-cut salad industry.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Biosciences
Publisher:	International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS)
ISSN:	0567-7572
Last Modified:	07 Jan 2026 10:05
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183625

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