End-Product Control of Carbon Metabolism in Culture-Grown Sugar Beet Plants (Molecular and Physiological Evidence on Accelerated Leaf Development and Enhanced Gene Expression)

Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) seedlings were grown on media containing 90 to 300 mM sucrose or glucose. Compared to controls, sugar-grown plants had higher growth rate, photosynthesis, and leaf sugar levels. The steady-state level of transcripts increased significantly for the small subunit of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) (rbcS) and the cytosolic fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase and moderately for the Rubisco large subunit (rbcL). The transcript level of sucrose phosphate synthase remained unchanged. Fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase and Rubisco activities did not change in the presence of sugars, but that of sucrose phosphate synthase increased (44 and 90% under selective and nonselective assay conditions, respectively). Accelerated leaf development was indicated by (a) autoradiograms of leaves that showed that sucrose loading occurred earlier, (b) export capacity that also occurred earlier but, after about 2 weeks, differences were not detectable, and (c) sucrose synthase activity that declined significantly. Several conclusions emerged: (a) response was nonosmotic and gene and sugar specific, (b) sugars caused accelerated leaf development and sink-to-source transition, (c) enhanced gene expression was due to advanced leaf development, and (d) whereas Rubisco and cytosolic fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase genes were sugar repressed in mature leaves of greenhouse-grown plants, they were unaffected in mature, culture-grown leaves. To our knowledge, these data provide the first evidence in higher plants that, depending on the physiological/developmental context of leaves, sugars lead to differential regulation of the same gene.