Peach fruit ripening: Proteomic comparative analyses of two cultivars with different flesh texture phenotypes at two ripening stages

Abstract Firmness is an important textural attribute of peach fruit that directly influences its shelf life and consumer acceptance. To investigate the underlying mechanism that determines the texture of peach flesh, we conducted a proteome study on the fruits of two cultivars: hard melting flesh Xiahui 8 and stony hard Xiacui. Then we compared these at the unripe and ripe stages using the isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) technique. In total, 190 proteins with more than 1.5-fold (P