VIEW ARTICLE

Cytology and Histology

Ultrastructural Changes Associated With Chilling of Tomato Fruit. H. E. Moline, Research Plant Pathologist, Horticultural Crops Marketing Laboratory, Agricultural Marketing Research Institute, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland 20705; Phytopathology 66:617-624. Accepted for publication 17 November 1975. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-66-617.

Ultrastructural modifications of tomato fruit organelles were correlated with low-temperature injury. Chilling of fruit for 10 days at 2 C interfered with conversion of chloroplasts to chromoplasts. After 15 days, mitochondria and plastids swelled and degenerated and after 21 days, organelles were barely discernible. Fruit stored at 7 C underwent similar changes, but those stored at 13 and 18 C ripened without breakdown. Fruit warmed after low temperature storage of up to 15 days usually recovered, as evidenced by reversible ultrastructural changes in mitochondria and plastids.