Fluctuations in sugar content are not determinant in explaining variations in vitamin C in tomato fruit

✍ Scribed by Capucine Massot; Michel Génard; Rebecca Stevens; Hélène Gautier

• Book ID: 104087289
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 712 KB
• Volume: 48
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0981-9428
• DOI: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2010.06.001

✦ Synopsis

The present study aimed to clarify the relationship between sugars and vitamin C in fruit. The objective was to determine whether vitamin C content was regulated by sugar content due to the role of sugar as a precursor for vitamin C. During summer, maximal content in sugar and vitamin C were found in both genotypes tested Solanum lycopersicon 'Cervil' and 'Levovil'. During autumn, fruit pruning increased fruit size and hexose content but fruit vitamin C content did not increase. Therefore sugar substrate was not limiting for vitamin C synthesis during autumn. We demonstrated for two cultivars, 'Cervil' and 'Levovil', with different sugar accumulation profiles during ripening, that sugar content was not determinant in the regulation of vitamin C content. The strong correlation observed between sugars and vitamin C in 'Cervil' was due to their concomitant increase during fruit ripening.