Abstract

NMR microscopy of mature gooseberry fruits using the gradient-echo method clearly delineated the ovary wall from the parenchyma tissues which surround seeds in the locular cavity. The gelatinous sheath around each seed, a single-cell layer, was also clearly defined. The entire vascular architecture of the fruit was revealed; dark vascular bundles within 2 large parietal placentae and the funiculi provided the supply to the seeds, and other bundles were present in the outer layers of the ovary wall. Spin-echo pulse sequences also provided high contrast images of these histological features, except that the dark line which accentuated the outer surface of the gelatinous sheath around seeds in gradient-echo images was absent. In a snapshot FLASH T₁ sequence there was little change in image definition as the value of τ was reduced from 10.0 to 2.0 s, but in the range of 2.0 to 0.5 s a bright region was revealed which included sections of the innermost surface of the ovary wall and an unidentified band across the loculus. In a T₂ sequence there was no discrimination between the ovary wall and locular tissues for high values of τ, nor any change in image quality for values of τ between 1.0 and 10.0 s. The image of the ovary wall and gelatinous layer around seeds was enhanced between 0.2 and 0.02 s.