Apple firmness relies on cell wall architecture

Apple, one of the major fleshy fruit foods worldwide, offers various texture properties for consumers and food processors. Knowledge about the underlying structural determinants of its texture is required to improve pertinent development of cultivars, production practices, postharvest management and processing in order to fit with new environmental and societal constraints and thus, making full use of productions with reduced waste. Cell wall polysaccharides and water compartmentalization are known key contributors of fruit texture. In cell wall, pectin has been highlighted as a major determinant of apple firmness in relation with water compartmentalization and cell wall organization. Cell wall remodeling occurring all along fruit development, the synthesis and metabolism of the glucomannan family of hemicelluloses during the early cell wall set-up are presented as one possible decisive step of the ripe fruit texture. New means of assessing cell wall architecture will be discussed along with apple texture variability.