Cuticular dynamics in fruits: insights into evolution, stress responses, and strategies for crop quality improvement

The plant cuticle is a lipid barrier that plays essential roles in reducing water loss, protecting against pathogens, and interacting with the environment. While it has been thoroughly studied in leaves, its dynamics in fruits have not been adequately explored. This research gap is significant, as the cuticle in fruits has considerable implications for crop quality, postharvest longevity, and stress resilience. This review summarizes current understanding of cuticular dynamics during the development of fleshy fruits, with a focus on evolutionary innovations that have influenced cuticle diversity in angiosperms. We explore the conserved yet highly regulated biosynthetic pathways, emphasizing compositional variations in cutin and cuticular wax specific to different species and developmental stages. The review outlines how transcriptional, hormonal, and epigenetic networks regulate cuticle formation in response to both biotic/abiotic stress, and how these changes influence fruit quality traits such as glossiness, firmness, and susceptibility to cracking. We discuss the potential of targeting cuticular genes-through breeding, transgenic methods, or CRISPR-Cas9 editing-to improve stress tolerance and fruit quality. This work highlights the importance of the cuticle in improving agricultural sustainability, especially in response to climate change, by integrating fundamental insights from model plants with applied research in fruit crops. We propose that fruit-focused research should leverage cuticle biology to develop resilient, high-quality varieties. This approach aims to reduce postharvest losses and enhance food security.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-026-01784-6.