Back to Search
Start Over
Physiological Profiling of Embryos and Dormant Seeds in Two Arabidopsis Accessions Reveals a Metabolic Switch in Carbon Reserve Accumulation
- Source :
- Frontiers in Plant Science, Frontiers in Plant Science, Vol 11 (2020)
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Frontiers Media S.A., 2020.
-
Abstract
- In flowering plants, sugars act as carbon sources providing energy for developing embryos and seeds. Although most studies focus on carbon metabolism in whole seeds, knowledge about how particular sugars contribute to the developmental transitions during embryogenesis is scarce. To develop a quantitative understanding of how carbon composition changes during embryo development, and to determine how sugar status contributes to final seed or embryo size, we performed metabolic profiling of hand-dissected embryos at late torpedo and mature stages, and dormant seeds, in two Arabidopsis thaliana accessions with medium [Columbia-0 (Col-0)] and large [Burren-0 (Bur-0)] seed sizes, respectively. Our results show that, in both accessions, metabolite profiles of embryos largely differ from those of dormant seeds. We found that developmental transitions from torpedo to mature embryos, and further to dormant seeds, are associated with major metabolic switches in carbon reserve accumulation. While glucose, sucrose, and starch predominantly accumulated during seed dormancy, fructose levels were strongly elevated in mature embryos. Interestingly, Bur-0 seeds contain larger mature embryos than Col-0 seeds. Fructose and starch were accumulated to significantly higher levels in mature Bur-0 than Col-0 embryos, suggesting that they contribute to the enlarged mature Bur-0 embryos. Furthermore, we found that Bur-0 embryos accumulated a higher level of sucrose compared to hexose sugars and that changes in sucrose metabolism are mediated by sucrose synthase (SUS), with SUS genes acting non-redundantly, and in a tissue-specific manner to utilize sucrose during late embryogenesis.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
0301 basic medicine
Sucrose
animal structures
hexoses
Plant Science
lcsh:Plant culture
01 natural sciences
03 medical and health sciences
chemistry.chemical_compound
Arabidopsis
ddc:570
Botany
lcsh:SB1-1110
Sugar
Institut für Biochemie und Biologie
metabolites
sucrose synthase
Original Research
biology
carbon
Embryogenesis
Seed dormancy
food and beverages
Fructose
Embryo
embryo development
sucrose
biology.organism_classification
030104 developmental biology
chemistry
embryonic structures
biology.protein
Sucrose synthase
010606 plant biology & botany
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1664462X
- Volume :
- 11
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Frontiers in Plant Science
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....1c673b054d02433a593abee99647747a