Introduction. Mango is themost economically important and nutritionally rich tropical fruit;it has high commercial value but a highly perishable nature; itssensitivity to postharvest diseases and physical injury limits itssuccessful marketing. Postharvest losses in fruits are a seriousproblem because of rapid deterioration during handling, transportand storage. Edible films and coatings can be potentially used asan elective preservation technique to extend the shelf life of fruits. Materials and methods. The influence of zein and gelatincoatings on the physicochemical characteristics, softening and antioxidative enzymeactivities of mango fruits stored at (32 ± 1) °C were evaluated atregular intervals of their storage period and compared with mango withoutcoatings (control). Results and discussion. Zein andgelatin coatings seemed to have a beneficial impact on delayingthe changes in weight loss, soluble solids, titratable acidity,pH, sugar content and total carotenoids. Zein and gelatin coatingsresulted in the highest retention of ascorbic acid and phenoliccontent as compared with that of control. Zein and gelatin coatingsdelayed the ripening of mango fruit by suppressing the activityof softening enzymes such as polygalacturonase, pectin methyl esterase,cellulase and β-galactosidase. Zein 5% and gelatin 10% coatingsmaintained the highest induction of defense-related peroxidase enzymes,followed by gelatin 5% and zein 10% coatings. Conclusion.The application of zein 5% and gelatin 10% coatings could be usedin delaying the ripening, maintaining the quality attributes andextending the shelf life of mango fruit during storage.

Protein metabolism is known to be affected by dietary proteins, but the fundamental mechanisms that underlie the changes in protein metabolism are unclear. The aim of the present study was to test the effects of feeding growing rats with balanced diets containing soya protein isolate, zein and casein as the sole protein source on the expression of genes related to protein metabolism responses in skeletal muscle. The results showed that feeding a zein protein diet to the growing rats induced changes in protein anabolic and catabolic metabolism in their gastrocnemius muscles when compared with those fed either the reference protein casein diet or the soya protein isolate diet. The zein protein diet increased not only the mRNA levels and phosphorylation of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), but also the mRNA expression of muscle atrophy F-box (MAFbx)/atrogin-1 and muscle ring finger 1 (MuRF1), as well as the forkhead box-O (FoxO) transcription factors involved in the induction of the E3 ligases. The amino acid profile of proteins seems to control signalling pathways leading to changes in protein synthesis and proteolysis.