Enzymes and Metabolites in Carbohydrate Metabolism of Desiccation Tolerant Plants

Abstract

Resurrection plants can tolerate extreme water loss. Substantial sugar accumulation is a phenomenon in resurrection plants during dehydration. Sugars have been identified as one important factor contributing to desiccation tolerance. Phylogenetic diversity of resurrection plants reflects the diversity of sugar metabolism in response to dehydration. Sugars, which accumulate during dehydration, have been shown to protect macromolecules and membranes and to scavenge reactive oxygen species. This review focuses on the performance of enzymes participating in sugar metabolism during dehydration stress. The relation between sugar metabolism and other biochemical activities is discussed and open questions as well as potential experimental approaches are proposed.

Keywords: carbon distributions during dehydration; desiccation tolerance mechanism; enzymes catalyzing sugar metabolism; resurrection plants; sugar accumulation.

Figure 1

The cellular activities related to sugar accumulation in plant desiccation tolerance. The arrows represent the direction of reaction/transformation and the thickness of the line represents the strength of reaction/transformation. The dotted line indicates the transformation has not been demonstrated experimentally to date. “Suc”, “Tre”, and “RFOs” indicate sucrose, trehalose, and raffinose family oligosaccharides, respectively.