Involvement of CitCHX and CitDIC in Developmental-Related and Postharvest-Hot-Air Driven Citrate Degradation in Citrus Fruits

Citrate is the predominant organic acid associated with taste in citrus fruit. Although citrate metabolism has been widely studied in recent years, the potential contributions of transport proteins to citrate content remain unclear. In the present study, high-acid citrus fruit Gaocheng (‘GC’, Citrus sp.) and low-acid citrus fruit Satsuma mandarin (‘SM’, Citrus unshiu Marc.) were selected for study, and the degradation of citrate was deduced to be the main cause of the difference in acidity in fully mature fruits. RNA-seq analysis was carried out on ‘GC’ and ‘SM’ fruit samples over the same time course, and the results indicated that citrate degradation occurred mainly through the glutamine pathway, catalyzed by CitAco3-CitGS2-CitGDU1, and also two transport-related genes, CitCHX and CitDIC, were shown to be associated with citrate degradation. These results were confirmed by real-time PCR. In postharvest ‘GC’ fruit, the expressions of these two transport-related genes were induced by 2-fold under hot air treatment, accompanied by a reduction of 7%-9% in total acid degradation. Transient expression of CitCHX and CitDIC in tobacco leaves was performed, and the citrate content was reduced by 62%, 75% and 78% following CitCHX, CitDIC and CitCHX plus CitDIC treatments, respectively, as compared with expression of an empty vector. Overall, these data indicated that two transport proteins, CitCHX and CitDIC, are not only involved in citrate degradation during fruit development, but also involved in postharvest hot air triggered citrate reduction.