Abstract
Firmness and physicochemical properties of 2 Chinese cherry (Prunus pseudocerasus L.) cultivars (soft cultivar "Caode" and crisp cultivar "Bende") at unripe and ripe stages were investigated, and the qualitative and quantitative information about sodium carbonate-soluble pectin (SSP) nanostructures was determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The lengths and widths of the cherry SSPs are very regular: almost all of the widths and lengths of SSP single molecules are composed of several basic units. The widths of the SSP chains are 37, 47, 55, and 61 nm, and the lengths are 123, 202, and 380 nm in both cultivars. The results show that the firmer cherry groups (crisp fruit) contain more percentages of wide and short SSP chains than soft fruit, and the unripe groups contain more percentages of wide and long SSP chains than corresponding ripe groups. They indicate that those nanostructural characteristics of SSP are closely related with firmness of the Chinese cherries in each cultivar.
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