Physiological and transcriptomic analysis reveals the postharvest ripening differences between “Nantianhuang” and “Brazilian” banana fruit

Banana, as a typical climacteric fruit, undergoes a ripening process which impacts fruit quality. The Nantianhuang (NTH) banana fruit is a new cultivar resistant to Fusarium wilt, whose physiological characteristics and regulation mechanisms of fruit ripening are not clear. Ripening physiology and the related genes of the NTH fruit were compared with the Brazilian banana (BX) and investigated in this study. When compared with BX, NTH showed a higher hue value, firmness, and starch content. However, NTH exhibited lower total soluble solids, ethylene production, respiration rate, malondialdehyde content, and activities of pectin methyl esterase, polygalacturonase and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate oxidase, indicating that the softening of NTH occurred later than that of BX. Moreover, transcriptome and gene expression analyses showed that NTH fruit exhibited lower expression levels of some ripening-related genes than BX. These results help understand the ripening characteristics of NTH and also form the basis for implementing measures to improve the ripening quality of NTH, eventually promoting the development of the banana industry.