Despite their importance in many aspects of plant physiology, information about the function of oxidative and, particularly, of nitrosative signalling in fruit biology is limited.

Tanou et al. study the ripening of kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) and find that ozone treatment markedly delays fruit softening and depresses the ethylene biosynthetic mechanism. Pretreatment with sodium nitroprusside (SNP) attenuates the ozone-induced inhibition of ripening and proteomic analysis shows a considerable overlap between proteins affected by both SNP and ozone. The results demonstrate that ozone-induced inhibition of ripening could be reversed by SNP and provides insights into the interactions between oxidative and nitrosative signalling in climacteric fruit ripening.
This article appears in the special issue ROS and NO Reactions in Plants.