Abstract
Postharvest ethylene accumulation and lignification are significant issues affecting the storage quality of fresh faba beans, resulting in rapid quality decline. However, there is still a lack of effective preservation methods to preserve the quality of faba beans during storage. This study aimed to investigate the regulation of lignification in faba beans during storage using a high-efficiency ethylene remover (HEER), examining physiological responses, key enzyme activities, and transcriptomic changes. Results showed that the HEER treatment inhibited the lignification, reducing it by 45% and lowering the respiratory rate of fresh pods by 32.8% during storage. Additionally, the HEER treatment suppressed respiration rates and the activities of lignin synthesis-related enzymes, including phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (from 353.73 to 246.60 U/g), cinnamic acid-4-hydroxylase (from 635.86 to 125.00 U/g), 4-coumarate: coenzyme A ligase (from 1008.57 to 516.52 U/g), and cinnamyl-alcohol dehydrogenase (from 129.42 to 37.12 U/g), thus slowing lignin accumulation. During storage, the hardness of fresh faba bean increased by 9.79% from the initial period, being 1.44 times higher than that of HEER. On days 8 and 16 of storage, the respiratory rate of the treated beans decreased by 24.38% and 4.12%, respectively. Physiological and enzyme activity analyses indicated that HEER treatment-induced increase in hardness was associated with the phenylpropanoid metabolic pathway. Moreover, the HEER significantly down-regulated the expression of several key genes, namely FaPAL, FaC(4)H, and FaCAD. This study helps to deepen the understanding of the inhibition of lignification by HEER and provide new insights for the development of preservation technology of faba bean.