Influence of hot water treatment on brown rot of peach and rapid fruit response to heat stress

• A curative activity of heat (HT) was found on peach inoculated with M. laxa 48 h before treatment.
• Cell wall genes involved in ripening (β-GAL, PL, PG, PME) showed a general decrease in expression in HT fruit as compared to the control.
• ROS scavenging genes and PAL, CHI, HSP70 increased their expression levels in HT samples as compared untreated fruit.
• Each analyzed gene proved to be differentially expressed following heat treatment.

Recent results on hot water as an alternative treatment open a new perspective in disease incidence reduction. In the present work peach fruit were wounded, inoculated with conidia of Monilinia laxa and 15 min, 3, 6, 12, 24 and 48 h after inoculation treated by dipping in hot water (HT) at 60 °C for 20 s. The effect of heat treatment on some cell wall genes involved in ripening such as β-galactosidase (β-GAL), pectin lyase (PL), polygalacturonase (PG) and pectin methyl esterase (PME), was analyzed by qRT-PCR. The expression levels of defense related genes, phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) and chitinase (CHI), heat stress-related genes such as heat shock proteins 70 and 90 (HSP70, HSP90), and reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging genes were also evaluated by qRT-PCR. A 100% disease incidence reduction, as compared to untreated fruit, was obtained by treating 6 and 12 h after inoculation. Moreover, brown rot was inhibited by 85.7% when fruit were heat-treated 48 h after inoculation. The expression levels of cell wall genes (β-GAL, PL, PG and PME) showed a general decrease in HT fruit as compared to the control, whereas PAL, CHI, HSP70 and ROS-scavenging genes increased their expression level in HT samples with respect to the untreated ones. Our results show a curative activity of heat on peach inoculated with M. laxa 48 h before treatment. Each analyzed gene proved to be differentially expressed following heat treatment.