A Simple Method for Vacuum Extraction and Quantitative Determination of Internal Ethylene of Excised Apple Tissue

Abstract

A rapid and simple method for extracting internal ethylene from excised apple tissue and its quantitative determination are described. The method is suitable for correlating the ethylene concentration with the physiological status of the plant tissues. One advantage was that the time required for the tissue excision, vacuum extraction of ethylene, and injection of a gas sample into a gas chromatograph was about a minute. The method provides accurate and reproducible results, i.e. ca. 80% or more of the internal ethylene in apple tissue can be extracted and determined. Another advantage of this method is that the tissue from which ethylene was extracted is still available for further analyses.
The method was applied to the study ethylene regeneration in apple tissue after the removal of the internal ethylene. The formation of ethylene in apple tissue increased after the existing ethylene was removed led us to propose that ethylene synthesis is governed by a feed-back inhibition. The inhibition (ca. 20%) of ethylene formation was significantly related to the level of internal ethylene in apple tissue.