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JXB Advance Access published online on March 3, 2003
Journal of Experimental Botany, doi:10.1093/jxb/erg113
© 2003 by Oxford University Press
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Received August 2, 2002; accepted November 25, 2002
© 2003 Society for Experimental Biology

RESEARCH PAPER

Physiological, biochemical and molecular analysis of sugar-starvation responses in tomato roots

Carine Devaux 1, Pierre Baldet 1*, Jérome Joubès 1, Martine Dieuaide-Noubhani 1, Daniel Just 1, Christian Chevalier 1, Philippe Raymond 1

1 Unité Mixte de Recherche en Physiologie et Biotechnologie Végétales, Institut de Biologie Végétale Moléculaire et Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Centre de Recherche de Bordeaux, BP 81, F-33883 Villenave d'Ornon Cedex, France

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: baldet{at}bordeaux.inra.fr.


  Abstract

Two-month-old tomato plants were submitted to day/night cycles and to prolonged darkness in order to investigate the physiological and biochemical response to sugar starvation in sink organs. Roots appeared particularly sensitive to the cessation of photosynthesis, as revealed by the reduction of the growth rate and the decline of the carbohydrate and protein content. Therefore, excised tomato roots were used as a model to deepen the characterization of sugar starvation symptoms. In excised roots, the endogenous sugars were rapidly exhausted and significant degradation of protein was observed. Glutamine and asparagine accounted for most of the nitrogen released by protein breakdown. Respiration declined and proliferation- and growth-associated genes were repressed soon after the beginning of the sugar depletion. Among the genes studied, only the gene encoding asparagine synthetase was strongly induced. All the starvation symptoms were reversible when the roots were resupplied with sugar. When the culture conditions deteriorated, the metabolic and molecular changes led to the triggering of apoptosis of the root cells.

Key words: Apoptosis, carbohydrate limitation, cell cycle, Lycopersicon esculentum, root, sink strength.


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