Proteomics of fruit development and ripening

Abstract

Comparative proteomics has emerged as a powerful tool to study complex biological processes in fruits throughout their development and ripening. This is greatlyaided by the rapid growth of genomics, transcriptomics and expressed sequence tags (ESTs) databases, which allows for protein identification and paves way for systems analyses and inference of molecular data. Fruit development and ripening are complex developmental processes that involve well-coordinated biological programs; the knowledge of which has valuable economic ramifications centered on the agricultural industry. Besides, fruit ripening is accompanied by numerous phenotypic and physiological changes, such as skin and hypanthium color and increase in sugar levels, which are regulated by environmental factors like light and temperature and/or internal factors such as hormonal and gene regulation. The latter is key in the classification of fruit species into their respective climacteric and non-climacteric categories. Comparative proteomics is therefore a useful tool to gain information on the molecular events taking place during fruit maturation in addition to finding biotechnological strategies to improve horticultural traits such as fruit quality, shelf-life and yield. In this chapter, an overview of methods utilized in fruit proteomics as well as a global proteome and systems biology analysis of fruits during ripening is presented.