Abstract
The sugar accumulation in tomato fruit is a complex physiological process, which is closely related to the supplies of water and mineral nutrients to the plant. In order to explore how carbon is allocated among carbohydrate under water stress and potassium conditions, the carbon conversion rate was used to analyze carbon variation among different forms of sugar, which is of great significance to understand sugar formation in fruit. The carbon allocation to sucrose, glucose, and fructose in fruit were quantitatively researched and their response to water and potassium supply was verified. Based on two years of experimental data, the rates of carbon conversion of fructose and glucose to sucrose (p2) decreased during all growth stages, reaching minimum values at maturity. The carbon conversion rate of glucose to fructose (p4) and of fructose to glucose (p4m) did not change remarkably, especially during the ripening stage, which stage was the most metabolically active period within the fruit, the rates were stable. The carbon content in glucose was slightly higher than the fructose, which may be resulted from the combined effects of both p4m and the rate of carbon conversion of starch to glucose (p5). Water stress and potassium had a considerable effect on p2 resulted in increasing the carbon allocation direction to hexose content and reducing to other compounds, leading to higher glucose and fructose concentration.
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Source is leaf, where carbon is supplied; sink represents fruit which is imported the carbon; the green arrows present the interconversion of different forms of carbon components in the fruit; the yellow ellipse contain glucose and fructose which are the main sugars in tomato and the green-curved line indicate losses carbon through respiration
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31960256).
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Conceived and designed the experiments: CNZ and ARL. Performed the experiments: ARL, XSZ, and CW. Analyzed the data: ARL and XSZ. Wrote the paper: ARL and XSZ. Revised the paper: CNZ, ARL, XSZ, and CW.
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Luo, A., Zhang, X., Wang, C. et al. Effects of Different Water and Potassium Supply on Glucose, Fructose, and Sucrose Carbon Allocation in Tomato Fruit. J Plant Growth Regul 42, 684–700 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-022-10577-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-022-10577-6