Variazione dei componenti della qualità e marcatori per la caratterizzazione degli ortaggi di IV gamma

The quality of fresh-cut or minimally processed or ready-to-eat vegetables depend from many internal and external parameters. Some are very labile (i.e. vitamin C) while others, instead, are very stable and do not significantly change during the shelf life even if the appearance of the product is compromised. Quality changes are mainly due to the product quality at the harvesting and the storage conditions during the postharvest period. During the storage period, a fast decline of ascorbic acid and some chlorophyll components related to electron flux in the photosynthetic activity occur. Contemporary other processes increase such as lipid peroxidation, membrane degradation and ethylene production. Usually ethylene increase in the packages or boxes containing the vegetables until to reach a plateau. In the leafy vegetables the stress conditions can be measured by monitoring the chlorophyll a fluorescence and the derived JIP test indexes. These parameters are calculated on the intermediate data points on the fluorescence induction curve. The increase of consumer’s safety several researches have been carrying out for identifying molecular markers associated with the senescence process that might be used for assessing the quality of product at any point of the distribution chain. Microarrays of tomato have been used for identifying genes up-regulated or down-regulated to cut operations (wounds). The genes differential expressed will be evaluated if they can be used as molecular markers of quality in the fresh-cut distribution chain.