Reducing the effects of oxidative stress in sweet pepper fruit during storage by using an edible coating of gum Arabic

This work's main objective was to investigate the gum Arabic effect on reducing oxidative stress in bell peppers during ripening. Gum Arabic in 6, 9, 12, and 15% aqueous solutions was applied as an edible coating before storage on mature bell peppers stored at 8°C and 90-95% relative humidity for 28 days. The fruits that were coated with 12% gum Arabic had the lowest rate of decay, weight loss, total carotenoid content, and peroxidation of membrane lipids, as well as the highest total antioxidant capacity, total phenol, ascorbic acid, and antioxidant enzyme activity (superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, and catalase) during storage compared to the control without coating and the fruit treated with 6 and 9% gum. Still, there was no statistically significant difference with the fruit treated with 15% gum Arabic except for the total carotenoid content. The amount of peroxidation of membrane lipids showed positive and high correlation coefficients with decay (**0.93) and physiological weight loss (**0.89), but with antioxidant capacity (-0.93**), ascorbic acid (**) -0.94), total phenol (-0.92**), activity of SOD (-0.96**), CAT (-0.87**) and POD (-0.86**) correlation. It was negative and high. The results showed that the use of 12% gum Arabic as an edible coating can delay oxidative stress and decay and maintain the antioxidant properties of the fruit for up to 28 days during storage at 8 degrees Celsius.