ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1636734
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancements in Mass Spectrometry for Plant Metabolomics ResearchView all articles
Figure 1:A-J Physiological Content Distribution in Yanzhihong Apricot. K: Color differentiation of Yanzhihong apricot fruitL: Sectioning position of Yanzhihong apricot fruit
Provisionally accepted
- Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China
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This study is the first to apply spatial metabolomics techniques, MALDI-IMS to investigate differential distributions of sugars, organic acids, and pigments in the red and yellow regions of Yanzhihong apricot fruit. PCA and OPLS-DA analyses indicated that sucrose was significantly higher in the red region (21.39 mg/g) than in the yellow region (17.79 mg/g). In contrast, the yellow region exhibited significantly greater levels of fructose (31.54 mg/100g), ascorbic acid (11.03 mg/g), malic acid (3.61 mg/g), and citric acid (6.41 mg/g) than the red region (16.88mg/100g, 8.29, 2.34, and 4.27 mg/g, respectively). The red region also exhibited higher carotenoid levels (29.25 mg/g) and the anthocyanin cyanidin-3-O-(6''-O-malonyl)glucoside, primarily in the peel and adjacent tissues, thereby enhancing pigment deposition and antioxidant capacity. These findings demonstrate notable spatial variability in sugar–acid metabolism and pigment accumulation between red and yellow fruit regions, which not only determine taste and color but also provide valuable insights for targeted fruit quality improvement and breeding of apricot cultivars with optimized sensory and nutritional traits.
Keywords: MALDI-IMS mass spectrometry imaging technology, Metabolic spatial heterogeneity, sugar-acid metabolism, Pigment distribution, fruit quality
Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, he, Xing, Li, kang, Ye and Bai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: yanhong he, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China
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