Almost all amino acids markedly increased with increasing maturity, except glutamine which decreased in the mMSL fruit, and leucine and isoleucine, which did not change significantly. Also alanine was found significantly higher in the mMSL fruit, whereas γ-ABA was one of the dominant amino acids in the LSL genotype. It is well-known that there is a biogenetic relationship between the formation of certain aroma volatiles and levels of free amino acids (Wang et al., 1996). In particular, the amino acids alanine, valine, leucine, isoleucine

and methionine are precursors of the majority of the esters found in melons (Bauchot et al., 1998, Wang et al., 1996 and Wyllie et al., 1995). The trends observed in this study (increasing free amino acids during development and ripening, leucine and PD-1 antibody isoleucine remaining constant and glutamine decreasing) were also observed by Wang et al. (1996), who suggested

that the type and extent of ester formation may be determined by substrate availability in the fruit. In mature melons, the total volatiles content is high, so considerable quantities of precursors are required for their formation. Although the concentrations of leucine and isoleucine remained constant during maturation, esters having carbon skeletons derived from isoleucine did increase with maturity. Wang et al. (1996) suggested that there is a series of steps in ester formation where a considerable degree of selectivity (enzymes involved) must happen as the substrates are drawn from the amino acid pool. Thus, the differences between cultivars in esters GDC-0068 cost derived from amino acids are likely to be due to the efficiencies Methane monooxygenase of the different enzyme pathways within each melon. Consequently, it can be concluded that the extent of ester formation will depend on the amount of available substrates. Harvest time will influence the total volatile production, since fruit that was harvested prematurely would not accumulate sufficient concentrations of required volatiles substrates and this will lead

to a poor flavour profile of that fruit. However, in addition to the availability of different substrates, subcellular localisation should be taken into account as well as the expression of synthesising enzymes, which play an important role in the reactions. Finally, the response to the climacteric genotypes (climacteric or non-climacteric) is also an important factor, since it was observed that the expression levels of genes responsible for biosynthesis of melon aroma volatiles are generally higher in climacteric genotypes as compared with non-climacteric genotypes (Gonda et al., 2010). The sensory profile of the samples was generated by a trained panel of experts who, at the end of the profile development, agreed to use 49 terms for the quantitative assessment of the samples.