176. Arabidopsis mitochondrial alkaline/neutral invertase C is important for germination and flowering

M.L. MARTÍN; G. MARTÍNEZ-NOËL; G.L. SALERNO

Potrero de los Funes

Congreso; XLVII Reunión Anual Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB); 2011

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular

Invertases (Invs) catalyze the irreversible hydrolysis of sucrose into hexoses and play a key role when a demand of carbon and energy occurs. It has become evident that sucrose and its hydrolysis products are important metabolic signals that modulate gene expression and regulate plant development. Alkaline-Neutral invertases (A/N-Invs) have maximum activity at characteristic pHs between 6.5–8.0. Their physiological functions are not clear yet. A/N-Invs are mainly located in the cytosol but recently different subcellular locations were unraveled, although their roles are stillunknown. In this work, we focused on the mitochondrial Arabidopsis At-A/N-InvC. Transcripts of At-A/N-InvC were detected in every tissue analyzed. Its biochemical identity wascharacterized by expression in E. coli cells. To explore its physiological function, invc knockout mutant plants were analyzed and compared with recently characterized inva mutant plants. Lackof At-A/N-InvC expression in homozygous mutant plants was verified by RT-PCR assays. A detailed phenotypic analysis showed that mutant plants present a developmental alteration relative to Col-0 plants, including delayed germination and flowering time, emphasizing the role of mitochondrial sucrose hydrolysis in development processes.