Team:UNITN-Trento/Project/Methyl Salicylate

Methyl salicylate it was our ripening inhibitor candidate. Differently from ethylene, the choice of the inhibitor was not easy, because it was difficult to find a volatile molecule, synthetizable enzymatically, that was also demonstrated to be an efficient ripening inhbitor.

After long discussions and researches we finally ran into some papers that present the effects of Methyl Salicylate (MeSA) in inhibit fruit maturation (REF). In these studied MeSA was used succesfully as an inhibitor of Kiwifruit and tometoes ripening in a concentration of xx mM. We were excited to find out that in the registry were available many parts necessary for the biosynthesis of MeSA. The parts exploited are all from MIT iGEM team 2006 Eau de Coli project.

We modified and improved these parts and resubmitted them to the registry, as they were not available in pSB1C3.

To have a quantitative analysis we used a Finnigan Trace GC ULTRA with a flame ionization detector (FID) that allowed us to detect ions formed during MeSA combustion in a hydrogen flame. The generation of this ions is proportional to MeSA concentration in the sample stream. A calibration curve was initially created using samples with a well known pure MeSA concentration (0 mM, 0.2 mM, 0.5 mM, 1.0 mM, 2 mM).