Physiological basis for enhanced sucrose accumulation in an engineered sugarcane cell line
Luguang Wu A and Robert G. Birch A BA Botany Department, School of Biological Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia.
B Corresponding author. Email: r.birch@uq.edu.au
Functional Plant Biology 37(12) 1161-1174 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP10055
Submitted: 12 March 2010 Accepted: 6 September 2010 Published: 17 November 2010
Abstract
Transgenic sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L. interspecific hybrids) line N3.2 engineered to express a vacuole-targeted sucrose isomerase was found to accumulate sucrose to twice the level of the background genotype Q117 in heterotrophic cell cultures, without adverse effects on cell growth. Isomaltulose levels declined over successive subcultures, but the enhanced sucrose accumulation was stable. Detailed physiological characterisation revealed multiple processes altered in line N3.2 in a direction consistent with enhanced sucrose accumulation. Striking differences from the Q117 control included reduced extracellular invertase activity, slower extracellular sucrose depletion, lower activities of symplastic sucrose-cleavage enzymes (particularly sucrose synthase breakage activity), and enhanced levels of symplastic hexose-6-phosphate and trehalose-6-phosphate (T6P) in advance of enhanced sucrose accumulation. Sucrose biosynthesis by sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS) and sucrose phosphate phosphatase (SPP) was substantially faster in assays conducted to reflect the elevation in key allosteric metabolite glucose-6-phosphate (G6P). Sucrose-non-fermenting-1-related protein kinase 1 (SnRK1, which typically activates sucrose synthase breakage activity while downregulating SPS in plants) was significantly lower in line N3.2 during the period of fastest sucrose accumulation. For the first time, T6P is also shown to be a negative regulator of SnRK1 activity from sugarcane sink cells, hinting at a control circuitry for parallel activation of key enzymes for enhanced sucrose accumulation in sugarcane.
Additional keywords: invertase, isomaltulose, parallel activation, Saccharum, SnRK1, sucrose isomerase, sucrose phosphate synthase, sucrose synthase, suspension culture, trehalose-6-phosphate.
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