Recently, the Potato Processing and Quality Regulation Innovation Team at the Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, systematically revealed a new mechanism by which pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment induces a reactive oxygen species (ROS) burst and further regulates metabolic changes in potatoes. The findings were published in the international journal Food Chemistry (JCR Q1, IF = 10.4). Renjie Zhao, a 2023 doctoral student at IFST, is the first author of the paper. Professor Honghai Hu and Assistant Researcher Ruixuan Zhao are the co-corresponding authors.

PEF is a green and efficient non-thermal processing technique that has been widely applied in the fruit and vegetable processing industry. It can effectively reduce processing costs and improve product quality. Existing studies have mainly explained the effects of this technology from the perspective of cell membrane “electroporation”. However, the endogenous metabolic responses induced by PEF treatment and their relationship with the formation of processing quality remain insufficiently understood.

In this study, potatoes were used as the research object, and a pretreatment process simulating industrial PEF processing was established. By integrating electrical impedance analysis, ROS measurement, untargeted metabolomics, transcriptomics, and gene–metabolite association network analysis, the study revealed the molecular mechanism by which PEF treatment regulates potato metabolism from the perspective of “ROS burst–oxidative stress response–metabolic reprogramming”.

The results showed that PEF treatment induced a field strength-dependent burst of ROS (including O₂⁻• and H₂O₂) in potato tissues, accompanied by enhanced membrane lipid peroxidation. Transcriptomic analysis showed that genes associated with oxidative stress signaling, such as OXI1, ANP1, and MPK, as well as antioxidant defense-related genes, such as GST, SOD, and GLRX, were significantly upregulated, indicating that PEF treatment activated oxidative stress signaling pathways.

Multi-omics integrated analysis further demonstrated that PEF treatment mainly affected metabolites and gene expression related to amino acid, carbohydrate, lipid, and polyphenol metabolism pathways. The treatment promoted the accumulation of serine, tryptophan, phenylalanine, tyrosine, asparagine, chlorogenic acid, rutin, caffeic acid, and ferulic acid, while reducing the levels of sucrose, fructose, and arachidonic acid. The study further discussed how these metabolic changes may influence flavor formation, color development, antioxidant potential, and acrylamide generation during subsequent thermal processing.

This study expands the theoretical understanding of the mechanisms underlying PEF treatment and provides theoretical support for the precise regulation of potato processing quality. It also offers new insights into the industrial application of PEF technology in fruit and vegetable processing.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program of Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Original article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2026.149474