Breakdown of chlorophyll is a major contributor to the diagnostic color changes in fall leaves, and in ripening apples and pears, where it commonly provides colorless, nonfluorescent tetrapyrroles. In contrast, in ripening bananas (Musa acuminata) chlorophylls fade to give unique fluorescent catabolites (FCCs), causing yellow bananas to glow blue, when observed under UV light. Here, we demonstr...

Bananas are cultivated in more than 120 countries and on the five continents in tropical and subtropical areas [7]. Bananas production is the fourth most significant of the world in terms of tonnage, after rice, wheat and maize. In 2013, world production was estimated at more than 106 million tons, of which 2 million produced in Caribbean [8]. However, only a small part is produced for commerci...

BACKGROUND Cultivated bananas are large, vegetatively-propagated members of the genus Musa. More than 1,000 cultivars are grown worldwide and they are major economic and food resources in numerous developing countries. It has been suggested that cultivated bananas originated from the islands of Southeast Asia (ISEA) and have been developed through complex geodomestication pathways. However, the...

This review article points out that bananas are an important food for many people in the world. Thus, banana cultivars rich in provitamin A carotenoids may offer a potential food source for alleviating vitamin A deficiency, particularly in developing countries. Many factors are associated with the presently known food sources of vitamin A that limit their effectiveness in improving vitamin A st...

Uganda is among the world’s leading countries in terms of banana production and consumption. Bananas occupy the largest cultivated area among staple food crops in Uganda and are primarily grown on small subsistence farms (plots of less than 0.5 ha). In addition to being a major food staple, bananas are an important source of income, with excess production sold in local markets. Average per capi...

This review article points out that bananas are an important food for many people in the world. Thus, banana cultivars rich in provitamin A carotenoids may offer a potential food source for alleviating vitamin A deficiency, particularly in developing countries. Many factors are associated with the presently known food sources of vitamin A that limit their effectiveness in improving vitamin A st...

We have studied the neutrophil-increasing effects of fruits and vegetables and their priming effects on cytokine induction. Among fruits, bananas exhibited the most marked priming effects. Therefore, we evaluated possible differences in the biological response modifier (BRM)-like activities of bananas (such as the effects on neutrophil accumulation and macrophage morphology, and the priming eff...

Public interest in food distribution systems as well as an increasing amount of food imports to the United States has resulted in a need for methods of quantifying the transportation of food imports in terms of distance travelled, energy use, and environmental impact. Geographic information systems (GIS) provide a powerful tool to organize and analyze spatial data. This study used a geographic ...

Banana (Musa sp.) and papaya (Carica papaya) cultivars were harvested from different locations throughout Hawaii and analyzed for vitamin C (ascorbic acid), provitamin A (b-carotene, a-carotene, b-cryptoxanthin), and mineral composition. Dwarf Brazilian (‘‘apple’’) bananas had almost three times more vitamin C (12.7mg/100 g fresh weight) than Williams fruit (4.5mg/100 g). Also, Dwarf Brazilian ...

Cultivated bananas (Musa spp.) have undergone domestication patterns involving crosses of wild progenitors followed by long periods of clonal propagation. Majority of cultivated bananas are polyploids with different constitutive subgenomes and knowledge on phylogenies to their progenitors at the species and subspecies levels is essential. Here, the mitochondrial (NAD1) and nuclear (CENH3) marke...