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Primary carbohydrate metabolism in plants includes several sugar and sugar-derivative transport processes. Over recent years, evidences have shown that in starch-related transport processes, in addition to glucose 6-phosphate, maltose, glucose and triose-phosphates, glucose 1-phosphate also plays a role and thereby increases the possible fluxes of sugar metabolites in planta. In this study, we report the characterization of two highly similar transporters, At1g34020 and At4g09810, in Arabidopsis thaliana, which allow the import of glucose 1-phosphate through the plasma membrane. Both transporters were expressed in yeast and were biochemically analyzed to reveal an antiport of glucose 1-phosphate/phosphate. Furthermore, we showed that the apoplast of Arabidopsis leaves contained glucose 1-phosphate and that the corresponding mutant of these transporters had higher glucose 1-phosphate amounts in the apoplast and alterations in starch and starch-related metabolism., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Tubers of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.), one of the most important crops, are a prominent example for an efficient production of storage starch. Nevertheless, the synthesis of this storage starch is not completely understood. The plastidial phosphorylase (Pho1; EC 2.4.1.1) catalyzes the reversible transfer of glucosyl residues from glucose-1-phosphate to the non-reducing end of α-glucans with the release of orthophosphate. Thus, the enzyme is in principle able to act during starch synthesis. However, so far under normal growth conditions no alterations in tuber starch metabolism were observed. Based on analyses of other species and also from in vitro experiments with potato tuber slices it was supposed, that Pho1 has a stronger impact on starch metabolism, when plants grow under low temperature conditions. Therefore, we analyzed the starch content, granule size, as well as the internal structure of starch granules isolated from potato plants grown under low temperatures. Besides wild type, transgenic potato plants with a strong reduction in the Pho1 activity were analyzed. No significant alterations in starch content and granule size were detected. In contrast, when plants were cultivated at low temperatures the chain length distributions of the starch granules were altered. Thus, the granules contained more short glucan chains. That was not observed in the transgenic plants, revealing that Pho1 in wild type is involved in the formation of the short glucan chains, at least at low temperatures., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)