Ripening is the coordinated set of developmental changes that brings a fruit toward its mature dispersal or eating state. Depending on the fruit, these changes can include altered pigmentation, softening, changes in sugars and acids, and the production of volatile compounds. They need not all occur at the same rate, so colour alone is an incomplete measure of ripening.
A particularly clear experiment established a role for Ethylene in tomato ripening. In 1991, P. W. Oeller and colleagues expressed Antisense RNA directed against 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase, an enzyme required for Ethylene production. Ripening was inhibited. Supplying Ethylene from outside the plant reversed that inhibition.[ref]
Reversible inhibition of tomato fruit senescence by antisense RNA by P. W. Oeller and others. Science 254, pp. 437–439; abstract, antisense inhibition and rescue by supplied ethylene
The intervention and rescue distinguish a regulating signal from a substance that merely accumulates while ripening happens. Suppressing production delays the process, while restoring the signal restores it. This establishes a causal role for Ethylene in that tomato system; the precise control of ripening must still be investigated for other fruits.
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