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ABSTRACT

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Introduction/Background of the study O

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The use of preservatives has become part of the normal routine in M

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food industries to prevent spoilage of foods including the fruits and D
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vegetables to minimize the effect it would bring if it undergoes a rapid C
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decaying process. These fruits and vegetables are one of the major sources L

of different nutrients and vitamins that are essential to our bodies during L
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this time of pandemic because nutrition of every individual is a must to B
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avoid getting sick. According to The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, it is R
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recommended that at least a half of every meal should be composed of
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fruits and vegetables for which these are rich in vitamins, having vitamin C Y

and A as the most common fruit vitamin, it is also rich in minerals such as S
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electrolytes. Aside from vitamins and minerals, fruits and vegetables are a I
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good source of antioxidants and dietary fiber (Slavin and Lloyd, 2012) N
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However, these fruits and vegetables are ripened easily. For

example, according to eatbydate website, the shelf life of strawberries, if left

on the counter top is 1-2 days, if it is in the refrigerator it would last for

about 5-7 days, and longer if it is stored in the freezer. Another example is

the litchi fruit, which has 2-3 days shelf life under room temperature

(Mohammad et al., 2017). These are just some of the fruits that are C
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susceptible to rapid ripening due to its nature which will result in its L
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limited shelf life. According to a study conducted by University of the
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Philippines Los Banos (UPLB), 28% of overall post-harvest losses are
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coming from the fruits. Hence, it is indeed an issue that should be F

addressed to deliver a better quality of fruits and vegetables to the M

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consumers. D
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Another concern that is arising is that the chemical fungicides that A
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are used can lead to resistance to microorganisms that attack the fruits
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which will lead to a much earlier decaying process. Aside from the A
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resistance, it imposes great risk to users. For instance, the chemical O
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fungicide, vinclozolin, which is already banned in the field due to its high A
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toxicity and possible carcinogenic property (Singh et al., 2019). The O
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common microorganisms that cause decay in fruits are fungi such as Y

Alternaria, Botrytis, Diplodia, Monilinia, Phomopsis, Rhizopus, Penicillium, S

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and Fusarium. Bacteria can also cause disease to fruits such as Ervinia and I
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Pseudomonas (Asian Journal of Plant Science and Research, 2015).
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On the other hand, Chitosan, which is one of the most abundant

natural polysaccharides that can be found in the exoskeletons of

crustaceans, is being studied for it has the potential to inhibit fungi and

bacteria that causes disease to fruits without posing harm to the farmers

as well as to the consumers. Chitosan is composed of 2-amino-deoxy-B-D-

glucopyranose and 2-acetomido-deoxy-B-D-glucopyranose residue. The C

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major property of chitosan which is the ability to inhibit the growth of fruit L
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pathogens like fungi and bacteria is due to the presence of three reactive
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different functional groups: primary-OH, secondary-OH and -NH2 (Duan et
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al.,2018). The fungi is inhibited by the mechanism of chitosan wherein F

there will be an interaction of amino group of chitosan to the cell surface of M

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fungi which will lead to binding, alteration and destruction of cell surface D
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(Qin, Li and Guo, 2019). C
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To address the problem in easily ripened fruits and harmful
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chemical fungicides, the researchers do a systematic review of microbial A
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properties of chitosan as a preservative to inhibit the food-borne pathogens O
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which will eventually lead to extended shelf life of fruits. A
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Objectives R
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This systematic review aims to prove the chitosan as an effective
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natural preservative of fruits via its antimicrobial properties. Specifically, I
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this review will determine what microbial pathogen is inhibited and for how N
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long the shelf life is extended. E
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Study selection

This review is inclusive only to the studies that use fruits as a

sample and chitosan coating as a method or application. Other ways of

preserving fruits using chitosan and additional substances will be excluded

in this review. Studies below 5 years of publication are also excluded.

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The studies are collected from the scientific databases including the
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ScienceDirect, Google scholar, National Center for Biotechnology E
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Information (NCBI), PubMed, and Elvieser. The search keywords for E

screening the studies are “Chitosan”, “Preservative”, “Fruits” and O

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“Antimicrobial property”. The documents were filtered and summarized
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based from inclusion and exclusion criteria for final evaluation. E
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Results C
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Discussion
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List of abbreviations A
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Acknowledgement R
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Supporting information O
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Appendix A: search terms, databases search strategies
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Appendix B: assessing risk bias C
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