Abstract
In this study, we aimed to elucidate the effect of pulp cell wall structure on fruit hardness and crispness in apples. To this end, we studied the cell wall polysaccharides in two apple varieties, “Hanfu” and “Honeycrisp,” during fruit development. Compared with Hanfu, the crispness of Honeycrisp was higher, whereas its harness was lower. The intensity and distribution of immunofluorescence signals indicated that galactose and arabinose contributed to the higher hardness of Hanfu, whereas arabinose, egg-box structure, and fucosylated xyloglucans, distributed in the corners of tricellular junctions, enhanced the cell–cell adhesion and improved the crispness of Honeycrisp. Besides, fucosylated xyloglucan played an important role in promoting the formation and maintaining the strength of the cell wall skeleton and, consequently, retaining the fruit crispness. The esterification state of pectin had little effect on the fruit hardness and crispness in both varieties. Collectively, our findings provided information on the underlying mechanism of fruit texture formation in apples.
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This work was funded by Special Project for the Construction of Modern Agricultural Industrial Technology System of China (CARS-28), Science and Technology Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS-ASTIP-2016-RIP-02), Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences (2020FJZX039).
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Ling Yang conducted most of the experiments and analyzed the data and prepared the original draft. Haidong Bu curated the data and software. Sijun Qin proposed a feasible scheme for the experimental method in this study. Jiali He reviewed and edited the manuscript. Peihua Cong designed the experiments and reviewed and edited the manuscript. Deguo Lyu reviewed and edited the manuscript.
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Supplementary file2 Fig. S1 Difference in the puncture curve of ripe fruits between ‘Hanfu’ and ‘Honeycrisp’. The curve of time period 4-8s in the figure is the calculation curve of brittleness. ‘x’ was some time between 4s and 8s (JPG 55 KB)
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Yang, L., Cong, P., He, J. et al. Differential pulp cell wall structures lead to diverse fruit textures in apple (Malus domestica). Protoplasma 259, 1205–1217 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-021-01727-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-021-01727-w