Sucrose transporters in two members of the Scrophulariaceae with different types of transport sugar

Abstract.

In order to study differences between sugar transport in oligosaccharide-translocating and sucrose-translocating species, two members of the Scrophulariaceae, Asarina barclaiana Pennell and Alonsoa meridionalis O. Kuntze, were analysed regarding minor-vein anatomy, sugar concentrations in leaves and phloem sap, and expression of sucrose transporters. The minor veins of Asarina barclaiana possess mainly transfer cells and modified intermediary cells and those of Alonsoa meridionalis have intermediary cells and ordinary companion cells. Phloem sap from these plants was collected by the laser-aphid-stylet technique. The main carbon transport forms in Asarina were sucrose and in Alonsoa raffinose and stachyose. The sum of the carbohydrate concentrations in the phloem sap of both species was as high as that in apoplastic phloem loaders. In Asarina the ratio of the sucrose concentration in the phloem to that in the cytosol of source cells was about 35 and the corresponding ratio in Alonsoa was about two. Sucrose transporter cDNAs were isolated from leaves of both species. By means of semi-quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction, sucrose transporter mRNA was detected in different organs and also in the phloem sap. This is the first time that sucrose transporters have been found in oligosaccharide-translocating species and that the mRNA of these sucrose transporters has been localized directly in the phloem sap. Taken together, our observations indicate that Asarina is an apoplastic phloem loader, while the results for Alonsoa are ambiguous: some properties are typical of the symplastic phloem-loading mechanism, but probably a sucrose transporter is involved in loading and/or retrieval of sucrose into the phloem.