Tonoplast Sucrose Trafficking Modulates Starch Utilization and Water Deficit Behavior in Poplar Leaves.

ABSTRACT: Leaf osmotic adjustment by the active accrual of compatible organic solutes (e.g. sucrose) contributes to drought tolerance throughout the plant kingdom. In Populus tremula x alba, PtaSUT4 encodes a tonoplast sucrose-proton symporter, whose downregulation by chronic mild drought or transgenic manipulation is known to increase leaf sucrose and turgor. While this may constitute a single drought tolerance mechanism, we now report that other adjustments which can occur during a worsening water deficit are damped when PtaSUT4 is constitutively downregulated. Specifically, we report that starch use and leaf relative water content (RWC) dynamics were compromised when plants with constitutively downregulated PtaSUT4 were subjected to a water deficit. Leaf RWC decreased more in wild-type and vector

SUBMITTER: Harding SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9381566 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature