ABSTRACT
80Polyamines (PAs) play a vital role in prolonging the shelf life of perishable horticultural crops. There are three polyamines, viz., putrescine (PUT), spermine (SPE), and spermidine (SPD), which are prominently applied at a particular concentration to extend the shelf life of fruits. The exogenously applied concentrations are required to be optimized so as to reach a significant conclusion. They also originate endogenously during the developmental phases of horticultural crops and simultaneously affect the quality and shelf life-related attributes. Their nature of being antiethylene is being exploited to enhance the shelf life when exogenously applied on fruits. The manifestation of PAs applied in the preharvest phase of horticultural crops is equally realized during the postharvest phases till storage. Prominently, PUT, SPE, and SPD treatments are being applied during the postharvest phase to prolong the shelf life. PAs have a mitigating impact on the biotic and abiotic stresses, one of which is chilling injury (CI) in fruits and vegetables. PAs are environment friendly in nature and are easily biodegradable without showing any negative externality on the environment. Biotechnological interventions by using chimeric gene constructs of PA encoding genes have boosted the research to develop transgenic fruits and vegetables, which would possess inherent or in situ mechanism of enhanced biosynthesis of PAs at different stages of development. The internal and external quality attributes of fruits are improved by the modulation of the antioxidant system and by strengthening the morphology of fruits and vegetables by electrostatic interaction between PAs and phospholipids.
