Metabolic control of seedling development by invertases
Katharina B. Bonfig A , Susanne Berger A , Tahira Fatima A C , Mari-Cruz González A B C and Thomas Roitsch A DA Julius-von-Sachs-Institut fuer Biowissenschaften, Universitaet Wuerzburg, Julius-von-Sachs-Platz 2, 97082 Wuerzburg, Germany.
B Present address: Instituto de Bioquímica Vegetal y Fotosíntesis, Centro de Investigaciones Científicas ‘Isla de la Cartuja’, Avda. Americo Vespucio, 49, 41092 Sevilla, Spain.
C Authors contributed equally and are listed alphabetically.
D Corresponding author. Email: roitsch@biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de
Functional Plant Biology 34(6) 508-516 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP06206
Submitted: 24 August 2006 Accepted: 21 March 2007 Published: 1 June 2007
Abstract
Invertases are important enzymes in higher plants, which are involved in regulating developmental processes and responses to external factors. In a functional approach the role of invertases was investigated using transgenic plants ectopically expressing inhibitor proteins to decrease invertase activity. For generating specific effects, these inhibitor proteins were expressed in Arabidopsis under the control of synthetic promoters consisting of tetramers of pathogen-inducible elements, which were reported to yield low constitutive expression. Unexpectedly, seedling growth of putative transgenic plants was arrested at the four-leaf stage. Analysis of β-glucuronidase activity of corresponding reporter gene lines showed a correlation of the growth arrest with high activity of these promoters in seedlings grown under tissue culture conditions. The negative effect of invertase inhibition on seedling growth was substantiated by transgenic tobacco plants expressing an invertase inhibitor under control of a tetracycline inducible promoter. Ectopic induction of the invertase inhibitor during early seedling development resulted in a reduced fresh weight of seedlings. The importance of invertase in seedling development is further supported by results of expression profiling of invertases in Arabidopsis, which was confirmed by expression analyses. The mRNA for the vacuolar invertases Atßfruct3 and Atßfruct4 and cell wall invertase AtcwINV1 are specifically and strongly expressed during seedling development. These complementing results show that invertase activity is required for normal seedling development.
Additional keywords: Arabidopsis, invertase inhibitors, source–sink, tobacco.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to I. Somssich and P. Rushton for providing the promoter constructs and the Arabidopsis GUS-reporter lines and to A. Hauser for technical help in the initial stages of the project. This work was supported by Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Umwelt, Gesundheit und Verbraucherschutz (to TR) and the SFB 567 (to SB). Financial support by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) to MCG is also gratefully acknowledged.
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