Abstract：α-mannosidase(α-man), a key enzyme in the process of N-glycan, was reported to play an vital role in controlling fruit softening and extending shelf life. This is of important significance to make clear the physiological function and regulation mechanism of α-man during peach fruits softening for further clarifying the softening mechanism. A full length of α-man gene was cloned from mature peach (Prunus persica cv. Shahong) fruit by RT-PCR and RACE(rapid amplification of cDNA ends) methods, and its transcript levels under different treatments (ethrel and 1-methylcyclopropene(1-MCP) at room temperature) on peach fruit were further detected by Real-time quantitative PCR(qRT-PCR). The results showed that the obtained α-man gene, named Pp-α-man (GenBank accession No.JX310861), was 3 491 bp in length, with a single 3 075 bp opening reading frame that predicted to encode 1 024 amino acids, which contained a NXT/S glycosylated site in the N-terminal region, and belonged to glycosyl hydrolase 38 family. qRT-PCR showed that the expression of α-man in control fruits increased to the first peak at 2 d after harvest. While in ethrel treatment, it reached to the maximum at the first day, and the peak was significantly higher than that in the control. While in 1-MCP treatment, the peak time of α-man's expression was delayed 1 day and the α-man's expression was suppressed through the whole softening progress, especially at later stage. Therefore, the expression of α-man in peach fruits is concluded to be regulated by ethylene and ethylene signal transduction, and then participates in the softening process.
