Reverse Transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) is one of the most important techniques for gene expression profiling due to its high sensibility and reproducibility. However, the reliability of the results is highly dependent on data normalization, performed by comparisons between the expression profiles of the genes of interest against those of constitutively expressed, reference genes. Alth...

Prof. Francisco Artés is an agricultural engineer (UPV, Valencia) and refrigeration engineer (IFFI, Paris). He is Director of the Plant Biotechnology Institute (since 2001), Professor of Food Technology and Head of the Postharvest and Refrigeration Group (PRG) at the Department of Food Engineering of the Technical University of Cartagena. He was Director (1992-1994) of CEBAS (Centre for Applied...

Natural products obtained from plants constitute an alternative to chemically synthesized fungicides, whose improper use might have caused the development of resistant fungal strains. In present work, 40 20 native Argentinean plant species were tested against three citrus postharvest pathogens: Penicillium digitatum, italicum, and Geotrichum citri-aurantii. by classical solvent extraction metho...

Plant-specific WRKY transcription factors (TFs) have been implicated to function as regulators of leaf senescence, but their association with postharvest leaf senescence of economically important leafy vegetables, is poorly understood. In this work, the characterization of a Group IIe WRKY TF, BrWRKY65, from Chinese flowering cabbage (Brassica rapa var. parachinensis) is reported. The expressio...

Pitaya (Hylocereus undatus) is a non-climacteric fruit that reaches its best eating quality when harvested ripe, decreasing thereafter during storage (CHIEN et al., 2007). As a new crop, there have been limited studies focused on extending the postharvest quality of pitaya fruit. The main postharvest problems of pitaya fruit are mechanical injury, chilling injury, decay, and water loss (NERD et...

AIMS To investigate the effect of antagonistic yeast Pichia membranaefaciens on alleviating oxidative stress caused by Penicillium expansum in sweet cherry fruit. METHODS AND RESULTS At two maturity stages of sweet cherry fruit, P. membranaefaciens restrained blue mold rot caused by Pe. expansum. There was not any decay in yeast-treated fruit even at 5 days after inoculation. Carbonylated pro...

Crown rot caused by fungal pathogen is the most prevalent postharvest disease in banana fruit that results significant economic losses during transportation, storage, and ripening period. Antifungal effects of ultraviolet C (UVC) irradiation at doses varied from 0.01 to 0.30 kJ m-2 were investigated in controlling postharvest crown rot disease, maintenance of fruit quality, and the effects on a...