Dynamic analysis of sugar metabolism in different harvest seasons of pineapple (Ananas comosus L. (Merr.)

In pineapple fruits, sugar accumulation plays an important role in flavor characteristics, which varies according to the stage of fruit development. Metabolic changes in the contents of fructose, sucrose and glucose and reducing sugar related to the activities of soluble acid invertase (AI), neutral invertase (NI), sucrose synathase (SS) and sucrose-phosphate synthase (SPS) were studied in winter and summer pineapple fruits in this paper. Sucrose was significantly increased in most of the harvesting winter fruits which reached the peak of 64.87 mg·g-1 FW at 130 days after anthesis, while hexose was mainly accumulated at the 90 day of the summer fruits in July. The ratio of hexose to sucrose was 5.92:0.73 from the winter fruit in February. Interestingly, the activities of SPS and SS synthetic direction of the harvested fruits in February were significantly higher than those in July, whereas the invertase activities were exactly opposite. NI activity showed a similar trend to AI, but the amount of NI activity was higher than AI in both months. Therefore, NI appears to be one of the vital enzymes in pineapple fruit development. Conclusively, the enzyme activities related to sugar play key roles in the eating of quality pineapple, which could be improved by cultivation in different seasons. So we can arbitrate different temperature to improve the quality of pineapple fruits according to market demand. Key words: Pineapple (Ananas comosus), different harvest seasons, sucrose, sucrose phosphate synthase, sucrose synthase.