Changes in Tomato Metabolism by Applying 1,8-Cineole

Column chromatography was performed using silica gel 60 (200-300 mesh, Merck, Darmstadt, Germany) and Sephadex LH- 20 (Sigma, St Louis, Mo). For thin layer chromatography, silica gel 60 F254-impregnated aluminum sheets (0.25 mm, Merck, Darmstadt, Germany) were used. Compounds were detected under UV light (254, 360 nm) after spraying with vanillin (3% in H2SO4) and heating at 110°C.

1H, 13C and 2D NMR spectra of the isolated compounds were recorded on a Bruker DRX 300 spectrometer (Bruker Bio-Spin GmbH, Rheinstetten, Germany) operating at 300 MHz for 1H and 75 MHz for 13C NMR, using CDCl3 (Sigma, St Louis, Mo, USA) as the solvent, and TMS as an internal standard.

Tomato fruits

Organic tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) var. Chonto were obtained directly from a farmer located in El Retiro, Antioquia (Colombia). All fruits were selected unripe, woundless and weighting 110-115 g. The cleaningand disinfection process was carried out with distillated water and then immersed in sodium hypochlorite 2% for 5 minutes; finally, fruits were rinsed again with distillated water.

The treatment of tomatoes with 1,8-cineole was carried out in transparent boxes 35 x 19 x 12 cm previously sterilized, each box containing 8 green tomatoes (approx. 1 kg), randomly selected. On a Petri dish placed at the bottom, 300 L of pure 1,8-cineole were added and then the box was gently closed. Tomatoes were kept at 25°C, 95% of relative humidity, for 120 hours, using a 12 hour photoperiod. Assays were made by triplicate, with a control group of untreated cineole tomatoes.

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