Differential carbohydrate dynamics in Arabidopsis wild-type and ntrc mutant after trehalose feeding

Abstract

The trehalose sugar plays pivotal roles in plants. In Arabidopsis, trehalose supplied to the medium leads to starch accumulation through redox activation of the ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (AGPase) by the NADPH-dependent thioredoxin reductase C (NTRC). To gain further insight on the regulation of carbohydrate metabolism by trehalose and NTRC, Arabidopsis wild-type (wt) and ntrc plants were raised in the MS medium supplemented with or without 100-mM sucrose or trehalose and alterations in sugar and starch contents as well as the activities and expressions of some carbohydrate metabolizing enzymes were investigated. The ntrc plants displayed lower growth rate compared to wt by sugar feeding. Under trehalose treatment, the total soluble, reducing and non-reducing sugars of wt and ntrc plants decreased between end of the day and end of the night, but starch in the ntrc plants remained unaltered during the aforementioned period. The obtained data showed that trehalase activity and gene expression display diurnal rhythms. Meanwhile, under darkness, trehalase gene expression required functional NTRC. Trehalose feeding induced NTRC expression during the day, but suppressed it during the night. Moreover, AGPase expression found to be jointly regulated by carbon nutrition and the light–dark period in both wt and mutant plants. The current data also revealed that AMY3 (α-amylase 3) gene expression depends on the presence of functional NTRC in plants. It seems that cross-talk between trehalose and NTRC regulates diurnal carbohydrate metabolism in plants.