X. Tang et al., THE EFFECT OF ALBUGO-CANDIDA (WHITE BLISTER RUST) ON THE PHOTOSYNTHETIC AND CARBOHYDRATE-METABOLISM OF LEAVES OF ARABIDOPSIS-THALIANA, Plant, cell and environment, 19(8), 1996, pp. 967-975
Albugo candida (pers.) O. Kuntze (white blister rust) is a biotrophic
fungus which infects cruciferous plants including Arabidopsis thaliana
(L) Heynh. We report the effect of this pathogen on the photosyntheti
c and carbohydrate metabolism of A. thaliana. As infection progressed
A. candida caused a reduction in the rate of photosynthesis when measu
red at either ambient or saturating concentrations of CO2, These data
suggested that both chlorophyll and Rubisco were lost from regions of
infected leaves, and measurements of chlorophyll, Rubisco content and
activity supported these observations, The reduction in the rate of ph
otosynthesis was not caused by closure of stomata as transpiration was
unaffected by the disease, Infected leaves accumulated both soluble c
arbohydrates and starch, The activities of sucrose-phosphate synthase,
sucrose synthase and ADP glucose pyrophosphorylase did not change in
response to infection, However, the activities of both the wall-bound
and soluble acid invertases were higher in infected leaves than in con
trols; a new soluble invertase isoform with a pI of 5 . 1 appeared in
infected leaves, The possible origin of the increase in wall-bound and
soluble invertase activities and its effect on the carbohydrate and p
hotosynthetic metabolism of the leaf are discussed.