Water stress drastically reduces root growth and inulin yield in Cichorium intybus (var. sativum) independently of photosynthesis.

Root chicory (Cichorium intybus var. sativum) is a cash crop cultivated for inulin production in Western Europe. This plant can be exposed to severe water stress during the last 3 months of its 6-month growing period. The aim of this study was to quantify the effect of a progressive decline in water availability on plant growth, photosynthesis, and sugar metabolism and to determine its impact on inulin production. Water stress drastically decreased fresh and dry root weight, leaf number, total leaf area, and stomatal conductance. Stressed plants, however, increased their water-use efficiency and leaf soluble sugar concentration, decreased the shoot-to-root ratio and lowered their osmotic potential. Despite a decrease in photosynthetic pigments, the photosynthesis light phase remained unaffected under water stress. Water stress increased sucrose phosphate synthase activity in the leaves but not in the roots. Water stress inhibited sucrose:sucrose 1-fructosyltransferase and fructan:fructan 1 fructosyltransferase after 19 weeks of culture and slightly increased fructan 1-exohydrolase activity. The root inulin concentration, expressed on a dry-weight basis, and the mean degree of polymerization of the inulin chain remained unaffected by water stress. Root chicory displayed resistance to water stress, but that resistance was obtained at the expense of growth, which in turn led to a significant decrease in inulin production.

The role of fructan in flowering of Campanula rapunculoides.

Inulin type fructan was detected in all vegetative organs of Campanula rapunculoides L. plants. All flower parts contained fructan at some developmental stage. A steady decrease was found in sepals during development. Petals, however, stored fructan in the bud stage. A rapid breakdown during opening of the flower resulted in high concentrations of glucose and especially fructose that may contribute to the osmotic driving force involved in petal expansion. Before complete shrivelling, the hexoses were apparently exported from flower parts. Fructans were hydrolysed and exported from the stamen and style tissue upon flower opening. Similarly, the major fructan reserves in the ovary were broken down almost simultaneously with those in other flower parts. Hexoses did not reach high levels in the ovary, probably because they were rapidly metabolized and/or incorporated by developing seeds.

Cloning, developmental, and tissue-specific expression of sucrose:sucrose 1-fructosyl transferase from Taraxacum officinale. Fructan localization in roots.

Sucrose:sucrose 1-fructosyl transferase (1-SST) is the key enzyme initiating fructan synthesis in Asteraceae. Using reverse transcriptase-PCR, we isolated the cDNA for 1-SST from Taraxacum officinale. The cDNA-derived amino acid sequence showed very high homology to other Asteracean 1-SSTs (Cichorium intybus 86%, Cynara scolymus 82%, Helianthus tuberosus 80%), but homology to 1-SST from Allium cepa (46%) and Aspergillus foetidus (18%) was much lower. Fructan concentrations, 1-SST activities, 1-SST protein, and mRNA concentrations were compared in different organs during vegetative and generative development of T. officinale plants. Expression of 1-SST was abundant in young roots but very low in leaves. 1-SST was also expressed at the flowering stages in roots, stalks, and receptacles. A good correlation was found between northern and western blots showing transcriptional regulation of 1-SST. At the pre-flowering stage, 1-SST mRNA concentrations and 1-SST activities were higher in the root phloem than in the xylem, resulting in the higher fructan concentrations in the phloem. Fructan localization studies indicated that fructan is preferentially stored in phloem parenchyma cells in the vicinity of the secondary sieve tube elements. However, inulin-like crystals occasionally appeared in xylem vessels.

Nutrient-induced activation of trehalase in nutrient-starved cells of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae: cAMP is not involved as second messenger.

Starvation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells for specific nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphate or sulphate causes arrest in the G1 phase of the cell cycle at a specific point called 'start'. Re-addition of different nitrogen sources, phosphate or sulphate to such starved cells causes activation of trehalase within a few minutes. Nitrogen-source- and sulphate-induced activation of trehalase were not associated with any change in the cAMP level, but in the case of phosphate there was a small transient increase. When nitrogen-source-activated trehalase was isolated by immuno-affinity chromatography from crude extracts, the purified enzyme showed the same activity profile as in the original crude extracts, indicating that post-translational modification is responsible for the activation. In the yeast mutants cdc25-5 and cdc35-10, which are temperature sensitive for cAMP synthesis, incubation at the restrictive temperature lowered but did not prevent nitrogen-, phosphate- or sulphate-induced activation of trehalase. Since under these conditions the cAMP level in the cells is very low, it is unlikely that cAMP acts as a second messenger in this nutrient-induced effect. Nitrogen-source-induced activation of trehalase requires the presence of glucose at a concentration similar to that able to stimulate the RAS-adenylate cyclase pathway. This indicates that the same glucose-sensing system might be involved in both phenomena. Nitrogen-starved cells fractionated according to cell size all showed nitrogen-source-induced activation of trehalase to the same extent, indicating that the nitrogen-induced signalling pathway involved is not dependent on the well-known cell size requirement for progression over the start point of the cell cycle.