Impact of heat shock treatment on cucumber cell wall composition and cell wall hydrolase activity

In order to clarify the mechanism of how heat shock treatment alleviate the chilling injury of cucumber,the influence of hot shock treatment on the chilling injury index,cell wall compositions and cell wall degrading enzyme activity were studied. In a certain time interval,the chilling injury index,cell wall compositions and cell wall degrading enzyme activity were measured.“Jintian 208 ”cucumbers were put in 42 ℃ hot water for 10 min and then stored at( 2 + 1) ℃.The test results showed that heat shock treatment could significantly decrease( p < 0.05)the chilling injury index by comparing with the control group,it also could reduce the activities of the pectinesterase( PME),Polygalacturonase( PG),β-glucosidase and Cellulase,in turn,it could postpone the the reduction of the content of pectin and cellulose. The correlation analysis showed that there existed highly significant correlations between chilling injury indexs and cell wall components,cell wall hydrolase and cellulose activities( p < 0.01). It could,therefore,be considered that the heat shock treatment can reduce the degradation of cell wall components by reducing the activity of cell wall degrading enzymes in cucumber fruits. In turn,the integrity of the cell wall structure can be maintained.Thus,the cucumber exhibits a certain cold resistance.