Europe PMC · 2026-05-06
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.
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.