BACKGROUND: Lettuce is a leafy vegetables that are extensively commercialized as ready-to-eat product because of its widespread use in human nutrition as salad. It is well-known that washing treatments can severely affect the quality and shelf-life of ready-to-eat vegetables. The study presented here evaluated the effect of two washing procedures on fresh-cut lettuce during storage.

RESULTS: We applied omics approach to reveal global changes at the molecular level induced by peracetic acid washing in comparison with sodium hypochlorite treatment. We also performed microbiological analyses to quantify total bacterial abundance and composition. Our study revealed wide metabolic alterations, induced by the two sanitizers. In particular, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses pointed out a number of transcripts and proteins differentially accumulated in response to peracetic acid washing, mainly occurring on first day of storage. In parallel, different microbiota composition and significant reduction of total bacterial load following washing were also observed.

CONCLUSION: Our results provide useful information for the fresh-cut industry to select an appropriate washing procedure preserving as much as possible the fresh-like attributes during storage of the end product. Molecular evidences indicated peracetic acid a valid alternative to sodium hypochlorite as sanitizer solution.

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