Know more

The plant cuticle covers the surface of all aerial organs and performs multiple crucial functions (resistance to water loss, adaptation to climatic and biological stress). These properties are determined by the structural organization of the cuticle, a natural composite comprising lipids (cutin polyesters) and walls (polysaccharides).

However, this structural organization is still not fully resolved. In particular, investigations have struggled to get to the cell walls embedded in the cutin lipid polymer, and so their nature has remained unknown.

Using tomato fruit as a model, we developed a multimodal approach mobilizing pretreatments combined with a battery of complementary investigative methods (RAMAN and NMR spectroscopy, biochemical analysis, immunocytochemistry, infrared mapping).