Brassinosteroid regulation of quality in horticultural crops: Physiological and molecular mechanisms from preharvest development to postharvest preservation.
Jiang Y, Yu R, Zhang S, Huang X, Wu W, Lyu L, Cao F, Li W, Wu Y.
Plant Signaling
The strawberries you grow (or buy) could one day be bred or treated to stay ripe and resist mold far longer — because scientists are now mapping exactly how a plant's own hormones control ripening from the inside out.
Plants produce their own steroid hormones called brassinosteroids that act like a master control switch for how fruits grow, color up, and taste. This review pulls together what researchers know about how these hormones work — both while fruit is still on the plant and after it's been picked. Understanding these signals could help growers produce better-tasting, longer-lasting fruits without heavy reliance on chemical preservatives.
Key Findings
Brassinosteroids regulate multiple quality traits in horticultural fruits simultaneously, including color development, flavor compounds, and nutritional content like vitamins and antioxidants.
After harvest, brassinosteroids can delay fruit senescence, inhibit fungal and bacterial pathogens, and help maintain overall postharvest fruit quality through distinct physiological mechanisms.
Despite extensive study in model plants like Arabidopsis, systematic research on brassinosteroid function in fruit trees specifically remains limited — this review identifies it as a critical gap for future work.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Brassinosteroids — natural steroid hormones found in all plants — play a powerful role in shaping fruit color, flavor, and nutrition, while also helping harvested fruits stay fresh longer by slowing aging and fighting off pathogens.
Abstract Preview
Brassinosteroids (BRs) are a class of biologically active steroid plant hormones that play a central role in the growth and development of horticultural crops, the formation of fruit quality, and a...
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