Abstract: Pectin methylesterase (PME) is a pectin-degrading enzyme widely present in plants, fungi and bacteria, which often leads to quality defects such as precipitation, water separation and agglomeration and texture softening in fruit and vegetable juice and fresh-cut fruits and vegetables during storage. Therefore, effective inhibition of PME activity is important for fruit and vegetable processing. Thermal processing is currently mainly used for the control of PME activity, which can cause irreversible adverse effects on the quality of thermosensitive fruit and vegetable products. With the improvement of people’s living standards and health awareness, in order to meet people’s pursuit of higher quality products, some thermal processing and non-thermal processing technologies have been gradually explored and applied to the inactivation of PME. In addition, many PME inhibitors have been gradually developed. In this article, the inhibitory effect and mechanism of the current major processing methods and PME inhibitors on PME are summarized, and the application of different processing methods together or combined with PME inhibitors to inhibit PME activity is reviewed. We hope that this review will provide a theoretical basis for the production of higher quality fruit and vegetable products in the future.

Key words: pectin methylesterase; activity; inhibition; fruits and vegetables processing