Trehalose is the most widespread disaccharide in nature, occurring in bacteria, fungi, insects, and plants. Its precursor, trehalose 6-phosphate (T6P), is also indispensable for the regulation of sugar utilization and growth, but the sites of action are largely unresolved. Here we use genetic and biochemical approaches to investigate whether T6P acts to regulate starch synthesis in plastids of higher plants. Feeding of trehalose to Arabidopsis leaves led to stimulation of starch synthesis within 30 min, accompanied by activation of ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (AGPase) via posttranslational redox modification. The response resembled sucrose but not glucose feeding and depended on the expression of SNF1-related kinase. We also analyzed transgenic Arabidopsis plants with T6P levels increased by expression of T6P synthase or decreased by expression of T6P phosphatase (TPP) in the cytosol. Compared with wild type, leaves of T6P synthase-expressing plants had increased redox activation of AGPase and increased starch, whereas TPP-expressing plants showed the opposite. Moreover, TPP expression prevented the increase in AGPase activation in response to sucrose or trehalose feeding. Incubation of intact isolated chloroplasts with 100 M T6P significantly and specifically increased reductive activation of AGPase within 15 min. Results provide evidence that T6P is synthesized in the cytosol and acts on plastidial metabolism by promoting thioredoxin-mediated redox transfer to AGPase in response to cytosolic sugar levels, thereby allowing starch synthesis to be regulated independently of light. The discovery informs about the evolution of plant metabolism and how chloroplasts of prokaryotic origin use an intermediate of the ancient trehalose pathway to report the metabolic status of the cytosol.SNF1 kinase ͉ sugar signaling ͉ thioredoxin S tarch is the major carbon store in plants consisting of an insoluble polymer of ␣-1,4-and ␣-1,6-linked glucose units (1). In the chloroplast of leaves, starch is synthesized during the day as a transient store, which is degraded during the night to support nonphotosynthetic leaf metabolism and sucrose export. In heterotrophic storage organs such as potato tubers, most of the incoming sucrose is converted to starch as a long-term carbon store for reproductive growth. In addition to its central role in carbon metabolism of plants, starch is also of great economical importance and is used for food and feed purposes and many industrial applications (2).ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (AGPase) catalyzes the first committed step of starch synthesis in the plastid, converting glucose 1-phosphate and ATP to ADP-glucose and PP i . ADP-glucose is subsequently used by starch synthases and branching enzymes to elongate the glucan chains of the starch granule. AGPase is a heterotetramer that contains two large (AGPS, 51 kDa) and two slightly smaller subunits (AGPB, 50 kDa) (3, 4). Work with Arabidopsis mutants (5) and potato tubers (6) showed that the enzyme catalyzes a near rate-limiting step in the pat...