A new subfamily of sucrose transporters from Arabidopsis ( AtSUT4 ), tomato ( LeSUT4 ), and potato ( StSUT4 ) was isolated, demonstrating only 47% similarity to the previously characterized SUT1. SUT4 from two plant species conferred sucrose uptake activity when expressed in yeast. The K m for sucrose uptake by AtSUT4 of 11.6 ؎ 0.6 mM was ف 10-fold greater than for all other plant sucrose transporters characterized to date. An ortholog from potato had similar kinetic properties. Thus, SUT4 corresponds to the low-affinity/high-capacity saturable component of sucrose uptake found in leaves. In contrast to SUT1, SUT4 is expressed predominantly in minor veins in source leaves, where high-capacity sucrose transport is needed for phloem loading. In potato and tomato, SUT4 was immunolocalized specifically to enucleate sieve elements, indicating that like SUT1, macromolecular trafficking is required to transport the mRNA or the protein from companion cells through plasmodesmata into the sieve elements.
INTRODUCTIONThe reduced carbon produced through photosynthesis in mature leaves is distributed by the vascular system, mainly in the form of sucrose, to support the growth of heterotrophic (sink) tissues such as developing leaves, the shoot apex, roots, and reproductive organs. Within the vascular tissue, the sieve elements in the phloem form the conduits for long-distance transport. Sieve elements are highly specialized, lacking many organelles (including a nucleus and vacuole) at maturity, and hence depend on tightly associated companion cells for metabolic support (Sjölund, 1997). The loading of sucrose into the sieve element/companion cell (SE/CC) complex in many plants requires the active uptake of sucrose from the extracellular space. Because of variability in the rate of photosynthesis according to changes in environmental conditions, and because sink demands change depending on development and external factors, we can reasonably assume that the rate of phloem loading of sucrose is regulated. In fact, the phenotype of transgenic plants overexpressing pyruvate decarboxylase indicates that sugar export from potato leaves can be upregulated by as much as 10-fold (Tadege et al., 1998). The increase in sucrose transport activity caused by modification of a conserved histidine in the first external loop (Lu and Bush, 1998) indicates that sucrose transporters may be directly regulated at the protein level. In addition, the amounts of mRNA for sucrose transporter SUT1 from potato are developmentally controlled and hormonally regulated (Riesmeier et al., 1993;Harms et al., 1994).Clearly, multiple kinetic components of sucrose uptake are present in leaves (Delrot and Bonnemain, 1981;Maynard and Lucas, 1982). As demonstrated by autoradiography, 14 C-sucrose, externally applied to source leaves of Vicia faba or Beta vulgaris , is taken up by mesophyll cells and phloem (Fondy and Geiger, 1977;Giaquinta, 1977;Delrot, 1981). The overall K m for sucrose uptake into leaves is pH dependent, with greater affinity being measured at ...